In this paper, published on Nature Communications by Simon Faissner and colleagues, the authors screened a group of 1040 compounds from the NINDS database in order to find a potential therapeutic compound for progressive multiple sclerosis, a diagnosis for which most of clinical trials have failed so far.
The authors narrowed down the initial group of 1040 molecules based on various criteria such as the ability to enter the CNS, to protect neuron cultures from iron- and rotenone-induced oxidative damage, or to influence T cell biology. The finally selected compound, clomipramine -a tricyclic antidepressant- was able to significantly ameliorate the clinical phenotype (age of onset and over-time severity) in both acute and chronical models of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.