Papua New Guinean tree compound protects nerve cells from degeneration

Researchers at the University of Wollongong in Australia identified a compound from a rainforest tree that protects nerve cells from motor neuron disease (MND).

The team worked at the Neurodevelopment and Neurodegeneration Lab to find new treatments for MND, a condition where nerve cells degenerate. They tested more than 500 different compounds on motor neurons grown from the stem cells of people with both sporadic and familial forms of the disease.

The researchers looked at various plants and marine life from Australia and the Oceania region to find potential leads. The study found that hopeaphenol, a compound from the Anisoptera thurifera tree native to Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Indonesia, protected motor neurons from breaking down. This compound helped preserve the branching fibers of the cells and performed better than resveratrol, a common grape compound.

In tests involving motor neurons from 14 donors, hopeaphenol protected the cells from 12 of them. It also reduced overexcitable electrical activity in some samples. Hopeaphenol works by activating SIRT1, a protein that helps cells manage stress and damage. Because hopeaphenol might struggle to cross the blood-brain barrier and is difficult to manufacture, the team also tested a small-molecule drug called SRT2104.

This drug activates the same protein and protected motor neurons at about a third of the concentration required for hopeaphenol. The researchers say these results offer a promising starting point for developing new drugs for the various forms of the disease.