#ResearchSpeak & #OffLabel: are you up for taking seroquel?

Can seroquel be the drug people with MS need to remyelinate their damage axons? #ResearchSpeak #OffLabel


Yesterday some joker mentioned Seroquel (quetiapine) on the blog; he suggested MD had missed a few doses. Paul Simon even popularises the drug in his recent hit 'In a Parade' on his album 'Stranger to Stranger'.

Some nights the ER is quiet as an EKG
But tonight it feels like every broken bone

Tonight it feels like every wounded soul
Is filling out a form or on the 'phone

I can't talk now, I'm in a parade
I can't talk now, I'm in a parade
Can't talk to you now, I'm in a parade
I can't talk now, I'm in a parade

Diagnosis: schizophrenic
Prognosis: guarded
Medication: Seroquel
Occupation: Street Angel

I drank some orange soda
Then I drank some grape
I wear a hoodie now to cover my mistake
My head's a lollipop
My head is a lollipop
My head's a lollipop and everyone wants to lick it
I wear a hoodie now so I won't get a ticket
I write my verse for the universe
That's who I am

I can't talk now, I'm in a parade
I can't talk now, I'm in a parade
I can't talk now, I'm in a parade
Can't talk to you now, I'm in a parade

Diagnosis: schizophrenic
Prognosis: guarded
Medication: Seroquel
Occupation: Street Angel

Jokes, and songs, aside quetiapine is an interesting drug. Quetiapine is often prescribed to pwMS to treat psychiatric and non-psychiatric symptoms of MS including depression, anxiety, insomnia, agitation, hypomania, psychosis and rarely as a last resort for some pain syndromes. It has been hypothesised to have off target effects and work as a potentially remyelinating agent. In the non-hypothesis driven drug screen that delivered clemastine as a potential remyelinating agent, quetiapine was one of the hits that came-up very high on the list of potential drugs to promote remyelination. 


We now have a path for testing for remyelination therapies in MS, but what we don't have is a path for repurposing generic drugs (quetiapine is now off-patent). How are we as a community going to solve this thorny problem of repurposing off-patent drugs? We have posted on this issue before and could do with some inspiration. Off-label prescribing is not the solution as it rarely attracts the necessary investment to generate the class 1 data for getting a drug licensed or used in clinical practice. 

Zhornitsky et al. Quetiapine fumarate for the treatment of multiple sclerosis: focus on myelin repair. CNS Neurosci Ther. 2013 Oct;19(10):737-44.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a central nervous system disorder that is associated with progressive oligodendrocyte and neuronal loss, axonal degeneration, and demyelination. Several medications that mitigate immune abnormalities reduce both the frequency of relapses and inflammation on magnetic resonance imaging, leading to improved outcomes for people with the relapsing-remitting form of MS. However, there are no treatments for the progressive forms of MS where neurons and axons continue to degenerate; here, neuroprotective therapies, or medications that rebuild myelin to confer axonal well-being, may be useful. Quetiapine fumarate is an atypical antipsychotic with reported remyelinating and neuroprotective properties in inflammatory and noninflammatory models of demyelination, including experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, and both cuprizone- and global cerebral ischemia-induced demyelination. Preclinical studies suggest that quetiapine may exert these effects by stimulating proliferation and maturation of oligodendrocytes, releasing neurotrophic factors, increasing antioxidant defences, scavenging for free radicals, and inhibiting activated microglia, astrocytes, and T lymphocytes. Additionally, quetiapine may be beneficial for psychiatric and nonpsychiatric symptoms of MS including depression, anxiety, insomnia, and possibly even pain. These data indicate that clinical trials are justified to determine the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of quetiapine fumarate in MS.

Mei et al. Micropillar arrays as a high-throughput screening platform for therapeutics in multiple sclerosis. Nat Med. 2014 Aug;20(8):954-60.



Functional screening for compounds that promote remyelination represents a major hurdle in the development of rational therapeutics for multiple sclerosis. Screening for remyelination is problematic, as myelination requires the presence of axons. Standard methods do not resolve cell-autonomous effects and are not suited for high-throughput formats. Here we describe a binary indicant for myelination using micropillar arrays (BIMA). Engineered with conical dimensions, micropillars permit resolution of the extent and length of membrane wrapping from a single two-dimensional image. Confocal imaging acquired from the base to the tip of the pillars allows for detection of concentric wrapping observed as 'rings' of myelin. The platform is formatted in 96-well plates, amenable to semiautomated random acquisition and automated detection and quantification. Upon screening 1,000 bioactive molecules, we identified a cluster of antimuscarinic compounds that enhance oligodendrocyte differentiation and remyelination. Our findings demonstrate a new high-throughput screening platform for potential regenerative therapeutics in multiple sclerosis.

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