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Origin of Viral Protein In ALS Elusive A study in the May 29 issue of Neurology is the third to find that a viral protein known as reverse transcriptase is more frequently found in the blood of people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) than in those who don't have the disease.
Reverse transcriptase is an enzyme that retroviruses (a viral family that includes HIV) use to replicate themselves.
When Daniel MacGowan at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York and colleagues compared serum (the fluid portion of blood) from 23 ALS patients and 21 without ALS, they found reverse transcriptase in 13 (56 percent) in the ALS group and four (19 percent) in the non-ALS group. All the ALS patients tested negative for the HIV (AIDS) virus.
An earlier report, published in 2000, found that 33 out of 56 (59 percent) of ALS-affected study participants had evidence of reverse transcriptase in their serum, compared to three out of 58 (5 percent) of those without the disease. They didn't find any known viruses, including HIV, in the serum samples.
A 2005 investigation reported reverse transcriptase activity in the serum of 47 percent (14 out of 30) of ALS patients tested compared to 18 percent (five out of 28) unrelated people without the disease.
However, this research group also found the enzyme in six of 14 (43 percent) of blood relatives of ALS patients who did not themselves have ALS, weakening somewhat the hypothesis that its presence could be related to the disease.
``The reason for the increased frequency [of reverse transcriptase] in ALS and its importance remains unknown,'' the authors of the 2007 study write. They note that no known retrovirus has so far been found to help explain the phenomenon, and they suggest further testing to see whether reverse transcriptase enzyme activity increases as ALS progresses.
``It's important to continue studies to understand this robust finding and its relevance to the cause and possible treatments for ALS,'' said Merit Cudkowicz at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who was part of the 2005 study.
The ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI) in Cambridge, Mass., in partnership with MDA, plans to use new technology to scan for viral and bacterial genes in blood and other tissues from ALS patients.
Posts: 339 | From nowhere | Registered: May 2007
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Dave6002
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They are heading in right direction.
Posts: 1078 | From Fairland | Registered: Apr 2006
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What is the source of this report? Looks like a newspaper article. Can you give the source and date of publication, please? This looks important.
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map1131
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A neighbor of mine last week lost her 33 yr old son from ALS. I heard he was doing some type treatment went into cardic arrest and was gone.
They had come to my house last summer and listened to me talk about possible lyme disease for onset of ALS sx. He was being treated by ID here and I bet he xx'ed out my theory. I haven't ran into his mother since.
So sad. Father of 3 yr old and 3 week old baby.
Pam
-------------------- "Never, never, never, never, never give up" Winston Churchill Posts: 6478 | From Louisville, Ky | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote:Originally posted by lou: What is the source of this report? Looks like a newspaper article. Can you give the source and date of publication, please? This looks important.
Lou,
Sorry, I usually post the date and source but forgot this time.
Date was June 27, 2007. I found this on the MDA website. Lots of interesting research and news posted there.
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Thank you, pineapple. This is the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which has just given a grant to the Cambridge ALS foundation for research.
It is interesting that the whole article deals with viruses, as the possible link, and only at the very end, there is one mention of bacteria. I really hope it is true that they will screen for bacteria too. Think there is more than one cause for ALS, and if they don't consider this, they will again fail to reach the right conclusions. Looking for one cause for every named disease is a blind alley.
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