Enzyme Protects Brain Cells NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A potent antioxidant enzyme -- manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) -- may protect nerve cells in the brain against damage caused by stroke and Alzheimer's disease, say researchers at the University of Kentucky Medical Center. Scientists hope the discovery will lead to new therapies to fight neurological disorders. The enzyme is one of the primary antioxidant enzymes in mammals. It has been shown to block the build-up within cells of superoxide, a free radical molecule that can accumulate and damage the molecular structure of body tissue through a process called oxidative stress. In the new studies on the enzyme, researchers at the University of Kentucky in Lexington inserted the human gene for MnSOD into human and rat brain cells, which were placed in cell cultures. They found that the cells that subsequently produced an abundance of MnSOD were protected against death from experimental processes that mimicked stroke and Alzheimer's disease. In addition, when the researchers introduced the human MnSOD gene into mice, creating a strain of animals whose nerve cells overproduced the enzyme, the animals' brain cells showed less damage from an experimentally-induced stroke than did those of normal mice. The researchers say their findings indicate that treatments aimed at blocking superoxide accumulation "may prove beneficial in the array of degenerative disorders that involve oxidative stress." SOURCE: The Journal of Neuroscience (1998;18)
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