Objective
Our ultimate goal is to develop new therapies for X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (X-ALD), the most frequent inherited monogenie demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (1:18,000). X-ALD is characterised by extensive phenotypic variability, which is not correlated to ALD genotype, and leads to death in boys due to cerebral demyelination and to motor disability in adults due to spinal cord degeneration. Allogenic bone marrow transplantation, proven to be beneficial in X-ALD, can be applied only to a limited number of X-ALD patients. Thus, there is no treatment for the majority of patients, in particular those with the severe cerebral form of X-ALD and adults with adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN). Understanding of the pathogenesis is necessary for the development of novel therapeutic strategies. The still unresolved transporter function of the ALD protein will be studied in reconstituted liposomes. To get further insight into the pathogenesis of X-ALD, we aim to identify genes and proteins that are differentially regulated in the target tissues of patients with cerebral ALD and AMN using Affymetrix analysis of differential mRNA expression and a proteomics approach based on MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. Additional genome-wide approaches such as mapping of quantitative trait loci will be applied to identify modifier genes that may contribute to the phenotypic variability of X-ALD. We will generate new mouse models that represent a wider phenotypic spectrum of the disease for a more efficient evaluation of therapeutic strategies...
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesneurobiology
- medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologygenetic engineeringgene therapy
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinephysiologypathophysiology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculeslipids
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicinetransplantation
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Call for proposal
FP6-2002-LIFESCIHEALTH
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Funding Scheme
STREP - Specific Targeted Research ProjectCoordinator
VIENNA
Austria