The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is seeking interested parties to license or co-develop GDNFOS peptides and non-coding RNAs as therapeutic agents for neurodegenerative diseases.
Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is a small human protein encoded by the GDNF gene. GDNF has been effective therapy in laboratory animal models of Parkinson's disease and protects several types of neurons in the brain and peripheral nervous system. Researchers at the NIDA have discovered primate-specific GDNFOS, encoded by the opposite strand of glial cell derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) gene. The GDNFOS gene encodes for novel peptides. These secreted growth proteins have potential neurotrophic activity and were found to be reduced in the middle temporal gyrus of Alzheimer's disease patients, and they might play a synergistic role in neuroprotective effects of GDNF in the human brain. The NIDA inventors have also developed an antibody against GDNFOS3 and generated compounds that have potential pharmaceutical use. The compounds consist of GDNFOS nucleic acid transcripts, GDNFOS protein or a functional fragment for treatment of human neurodegenerative diseases.