After collaborating with a virologist at the University of Illinois Chicago over the last few years, Duke specialist Henry Tseng, MD, Phd along with a interdisciplinary team of researchers discovered that the protein product of a gene called optineurin plays an important role in defending brain cells against infections by simple viruses. This optineurin gene was initially associated with glaucoma. Later on, the gene was also associated with ALS and appears to play a role in other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s diseases.
They found that optineurin appears to play a critical part in neuroinflammatory response and host defense against simple viruses. This in turn appears to protect against neurodegeneration that might be triggered or worsened by viral infections - in diseases such as glaucoma, ALS, Alzheimer’s, etc.
In a recently published paper, the research team showed that optineurin protects against herpesvirus. This virus typically causes mouth cold sores and corneal eye infections that are limited. However, using transgenic knockout mice without the optineurin gene, they found that herpesvirus infections rapidly spread from eye corneal nerves deeply into the brain, resulting in diffuse brain degeneration and animal death within weeks. In contrast, these transgenic mice can live up to 2 years without the virus infection.
The team also delineated this process at the molecular level, and showed that a potential drug involved in optineurin’s molecular pathway can limit neurodegeneration.