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A new technique
for treating muscle wasting diseases, which has been
developed at the Royal Free and University College
medical school, is ready to be tested on
humans.
The gene therapy
technique has been developed by Professor Geoff
Goldspink and Dr Shi Yu Yang who discovered that
injecting a gene which is naturally expressed into
wasted muscles after exercise could increase strength by
up to 40 per cent.
Professor
Goldspink is hopeful that the therapy could help a wide
range of patients; those with muscular dystrophy and
motor neurone disease are obvious examples but he
believes it could also benefit HIV and cancer
patients.
“The gene activates the muscle stem cells. In
dystrophic mice we have recorded an increase in strength
of 35 to 40 per cent in just three weeks. It makes this a
very good candidate for therapy for muscular dystrophy,
especially as we have found a way to introduce this
growth factor (MGF) into the body systemically so that
it affects all muscles, not just the one which has been
injected.”
The hope is that
the injected gene may also repair some of the damage
associated with diseases such as motor neurone
disease.
“The gene which we have cloned turns out to be
more of a repair factor rather than just a growth
factor,” explains Professor Goldspink. “It is
apparently involved in the maintenance of the nervous
system and, in the case of motor neurone disease, it
does improve the connection between the motor neurones
and the muscle.”
Previous
attempts to boost one type of cell via gene therapy have
increased the risks of cancer but Professor Goldspink
says his technique has no such side effects; in fact he
hopes it will help cancer patients by counteracting the
muscle loss associated with their disease, making
chemotherapy more effective. “There are many
diseases where muscle loss is a problem and patients
actually die from that loss rather than the
illness.
My job is to make sure we can treat this muscle
loss and I am very pleased that future research will
benefit from this
development.”
Professor
Goldspink believes that it is “inevitable” that the
technique will be abused by athletes looking to improve
their performance but believes that it is too important
to be ignored.
“It is very exciting even though it will be
misused because it has such an incredible effect on
muscle growth.
Every week I get emails from people who have read
about our research and who have muscle wasting diseases
for which there is no treatment at the moment. It would be
great to be able to do something to help save these
people from what can be a dreadful, lingering
death.”
NOTES
This research
has yet to go through clinical trials. The research
team are in discussions with a pharmaceutical company
with a view to starting trials, hopefully in the near
future.
The work into
this therapy is being carried out in conjunction with Dr
Richard Orrell, a neurologist specialising in motor
neurone disease who works at the Royal Free, and Linda
Greensmith at the institute of neurology at
UCL.
The
injected material increases the production of a protein
called mechano growth factor (MGF) which boosts muscle
mass and improves the muscle’s ability to repair
itself.
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