A Proof-of-Concept Clinical Research Study of Efavirenz in Patients With Alzheimer's Disease

1.0 BACKGROUND

1.1. Introduction

The brain is the most cholesterol-rich organ in the body. Circulating peripheral cholesterol cannot cross the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain, so all of cerebral cholesterol is synthesized and metabolized locally. The CNS relies on cholesterol 24-hydroxylation as its major mechanism for eliminating excess cholesterol from the brain. CYP46A1 is an enzyme of the CNS responsible for hydroxylating cholesterol to 24-hydroxycholesterol (24-OHC), which can easily pass the blood-brain barrier and leave the brain to travel into the systemic blood circulation. In fact, 24-OHC plasma level is a specific biomarker for cholesterol homeostasis and CYP46A1 activity in the brain. 24-OHC is a potent modulator of NMDAR, a receptor system in the brain whose hypofunctioning can lead to problems of memory and learning performance. Cyp46a1-/- mice and CYP46A1 transgenic animals established that CYP46A1 is involved in higher-order brain functions and processes beyond mere cholesterol balance: the Cyp46a1-/- mice lacking CYP46A1 demonstrated severe deficiencies in spatial, associative, and motor learning-- as well as deficiencies in long-term potentiation of the hippocampus. On the other hand, CYP46A1 transgenic animals with an abundance of CYP46A1 had improvements in spatial memory and significant increase in the levels of NMDAR in the hippocampus. CYP46A1 overexpressing mice possessing an animal model of AD demonstrated improvements in learning and memory, and reduction in pathological amyloid beta.

Various studies have demonstrated a number of associations between CYP46A1 and AD. For unknown reasons, this neuron-specific enzyme becomes specifically expressed in astrocytes of AD patients; plasma levels of 24-OHC, the product of CYP46A1, also change in AD patients-there are slight elevations of plasma levels in the early stages of AD, followed by decreases in the later stages of AD, (the elevations have been interpreted to represent demyelination of the brain and subsequent release of 24-OHC into the systemic circulation, and the decreases could be attributed to loss of CYP46A1 during the physical process of neuronal degeneration); and, finally, CYP46A1 is highly polymorphic enzyme with the most frequent intronic SNPs (rs754203, rs3742376, rs7157609, and rs4900442 being found at ~29- 40% frequency in the population. The CYP46A1-AD genetic link is, however, unclear, with only about half of linkage studies establishing the CYP46A1-AD association. Data from several laboratories point to enhanced metabolism of cerebral cholesterol as a strong anti-AD disease mechanism.

CYP46A1-mediated metabolism of cerebral cholesterol has never been considered as a pharmacologic target because the proposed activity requires activation of the enzyme, a significant challenge for drug developers. Only 5% of drugs on the market act as enzyme activators, with the majority of pharmaceuticals serving as enzyme inhibitors. Dr. Pikuleva's laboratory--over the course of more than 10 years' work--overcame this challenge by ultimately discovering that in mice, CYP46A1 can indeed be activated pharmacologically by efavirenz (EFV). This CYP46A1 activation also leads to enhanced cerebral cholesterol turnover in mice.