GOT to Prevent Brain Damage

Two studies recently conducted in Spain provide conclusive evidence for the effectiveness of a novel approach, developed at the Weizmann Institute, to treating stroke, head trauma and other diseases of the brain.
 

In 2003, Prof. Vivian I. Teichberg of the Neurobiology Department demonstrated a way to remove excess glutamate – a short-lived neurotransmitter – from the brain. Glutamate gets overproduced by injured brain cells, and the overdose kills off yet more cells. Teichberg knew that the body maintains a balance between glutamate levels in the blood and in the brain, and he hypothesized that removing glutamate from the blood would force tiny pumps (called transporters) on the brain’s blood vessels to shunt glutamate out of the brain and into the blood. By 2007, he and his colleagues had shown that rats given GOT – an enzyme that “scavenges” glutamate from blood – were protected against the worst damage from head trauma.
 

In the first of the new studies, Fransisco Campos and others in the lab of Prof. Jose Castillo, the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, worked with animal models of stroke. Injecting rats with a blood glutamate scavenger reduced glutamate levels in the brain, and also lessened cell death and swelling. In the second study, hospital neurologists in Spain tested newly admitted stroke patients for blood glutamate and GOT, and they found these two substances to be the best predictors of recovery at three months. High glutamate levels correlated with a poorer prognosis, high GOT levels with a better one.
 

A number of diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and even some brain tumors involve elevated glutamate levels in the brain, and human GOT might, in the future, be used to treat a wide range of problems. Yeda, the technology transfer arm of the Weizmann Institute, holds a patent for this method.

 

Prof. Vivian I. Teichberg's research is supported by the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurosciences; the Carl and Micaela Einhorn-Dominic Brain Research Institute; and the Legacy Heritage Fund Program of the Israel Science Foundation. Prof. Teichberg is the incumbent of the Louis and Florence Katz-Cohen Professorial Chair of Neuropharmacology.