Progress toward a treatment for Krabbe disease

Date:
August 26, 2020
Source:
University of Pennsylvania
Summary:
The inherited disease, which typically kills children before their
second birthday, has no cure, but a new study in a canine model
offers hope for an effective gene therapy with lasting results.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
In one out of 100,000 infants, a mutation in the GALC gene causes an
incurable, always fatal disorder known as infantile Krabbe disease,
or globoid cell leukodystrophy. Most children with the condition die
before they turn 2.


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A parallel condition also naturally affects dogs, who typically show
symptoms of the disease at six weeks old and succumb to it within a few
months. A study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI), led by
the School of Veterinary Medicine's Charles Vite, describes an effective
gene therapy for Krabbe disease in dogs with lasting impact. Dogs that
received the treatment have lived to 4 years of age and beyond with no significant symptoms. The work highlights the potential for a similar
treatment approach in children.

"This disease has no good therapy," says Vite, a professor of neurology
and senior author on the new work. "We've been looking at this disease
in dogs since the 1990s, but it was really the shift over to a new gene
therapy vector that gave us a chance to treat it with a big effect on
the nervous system." Krabbe disease is among a group of conditions
known as lysosomal storage diseases, characterized by a buildup of
materials in small containers called lysosomes within cells. Normally,
the GALC gene encodes an enzyme that breaks down lipids in the body. In
Krabbe disease, the mutated GALC causes lipids to build up, resulting
in deformed growth of the lipid-containing coating of nerve cells, the
myelin sheath, leading to impaired nerve cell signaling. As a result,
children with Krabbe disease experience progressive neurological symptoms, including blindness, deafness, and paralysis.

A bone marrow transplant within the first month of life can prevent
symptoms from arising in about 30% of infants, but the procedure is
exceedingly risky.

"A new treatment is really needed," Vite says.

Krabbe disease was one of the first pediatric genetic diseases for
which a parallel inherited disorder was found in dogs. Canines with the condition are part of Penn Vet's Referral Center for Animal Models of
Human Genetic Disease, allowing for the investigation of new therapies.



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To blunt the effects of the disease, the researchers knew that getting a healthy version of the GALC gene to the brain was crucial. They were able
to make progress in doing so by using a particular vector to deliver GALC
gene, the AAV9 vector, which has been used effectively in experimental
gene therapies for other neurological diseases and appears the best
candidate for FDA approval.

The site of delivery was also important. "We decided we would inject into
the spinal fluid via the back of the head, which is the most effective
means of getting to the brain," says Vite.

The researchers used both a high and low dose of the gene therapy, administering it to dogs that were two weeks old, before symptoms appear,
or six weeks old, after neurological symptoms had begun to emerge.

Vite and colleagues were concerned that simply delivering a normal copy of
GALC might not fully alleviate the condition's symptoms, which result in
part due to the buildup of a toxic compound called psychosine from the
errant metabolism of the mutant GALC enzyme. But the team was excited
by the dramatic results.

Dogs that received the high dose gene therapy before the onset of symptoms
not only had healthy myelination in their brains, but the gene therapy
also maintained myelination of the peripheral nervous system. "That
was a huge surprise for us," Vite says. "That injecting a gene therapy
in the spinal fluid can positively affect both the central and the
peripheral nervous system was really exciting." These dogs have also
lived symptom-free for upward of four years.



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Even dogs treated after they began to show symptoms lived significantly
longer with the therapy than without it. The lower dose of gene therapy, however, resulted in an intermediate form of the disease, underscoring
the importance of pinpointing the correct dose when translating the
findings to children.

Allison Bradbury, Vite's former postdoctoral researcher and the lead
author on the JCI paper, is now an investigator at Nationwide Children's Hospital and will be following up on the work to understand how psychosine levels are tamped down by the therapy throughout the body.

Vite's group, meanwhile, hopes to determine how differences in size and
biology between dogs and children can be used to identify an effective
dose for both.

And given the effect of the therapy the team observed in the peripheral
nerves, Vite is energized by the prospects of such an approach not only
in Krabbe disease but in other diseases that involve the peripheral
nervous system.

"The hope is to use the model as a method to understand the mechanisms at
work in peripheral nerves and how we can target peripheral neuropathies,"
says Vite.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grants
NS096087, OD010939, NS093898, HD096115, and NS065808).


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Pennsylvania. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Allison M. Bradbury, Jessica H. Bagel, Duc Nguyen, Erik A. Lykken,
Jill
Pesayco Salvador, Xuntian Jiang, Gary P. Swain, Charles
A. Assenmacher, Ian J. Hendricks, Keiko Miyadera, Rebecka S. Hess,
Arielle Ostrager, Patricia ODonnell, Mark S. Sands, Daniel S. Ory,
G. Diane Shelton, Ernesto R. Bongarzone, Steven J. Gray, Charles
H. Vite. Krabbe disease successfully treated via monotherapy of
intrathecal gene therapy. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2020;
DOI: 10.1172/JCI133953 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200826175643.htm

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