Treatment with penicillin-like antibiotics called beta-lactams have been shown to protect neurons from injury in lab-dish experiments.

Moreover, the antibiotics improve movement functioning and survival in mice that develop a form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig disease, according to a study released Wednesday.

The antibiotics seem to produce these effects by increasing the production of a compound called glutamate transporter GLT1 in brain cells that support neurons, Dr. Jeffrey D. Rothstein, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and colleagues report.

It seems that GLT1 helps prevent damage to neurons by reducing concentrations of the glutamate neurotransmitter, which can be harmful to nerves at excessive levels.

In their study, reported in the research journal Nature, Rothstein’s team screened more than 1000 FDA-approved drugs to find ones that influenced expression of GLT1.

The authors identified many beta-lactam antibiotics that were strong stimulators of GLT1 expression.

The team went on to show that treatment with the antibiotic ceftriaxone delayed neuron loss, improved muscle strength, and increased survival in a mouse model of ALS.

“This is, to our knowledge, the first evidence of stimulatory pharmaceutical modulation of the glutamate transporter, and provides a new pathway for drug discovery and manipulation of glutamate transmission in disease,” the authors conclude.

SOURCE: Nature, January 6, 2005.