A drug that can relax muscles could become a new treatment for asthma.
Current asthma drugs, called beta-2 agonists, have a big problem. Many of the people who take them become temporarily or permanently less sensitive to them over time 鈥� a dangerous prospect for the 300 million people who have the condition worldwide.
鈥淭his complication leads to 2 million emergency room visits and half-a-million hospitalisations of asthma patients each year in the US alone,鈥� says of Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
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But Ulloa and his colleagues have been working with a new drug, called TSG12, which targets the smooth muscle cells that line our airways. In lab experiments, they found that it relaxes tensed-up human muscle cells 100 times more effectively than some existing beta-2 agonists.
Open airway
When the team induced an asthma-like response in mice using a dust mite allergen, they found that their drug reduced airway obstruction by 80 per cent. This may be around 30 times more effective than isoproterenol, a beta-2 agonist drug.
Because the new drug specifically targets the muscle cells involved in asthma, it鈥檚 possible that it may also have fewer side effects than beta-2 agonists, which have effects elsewhere in the body and can stunt growth.
Ulloa says that trials of the drug in people may begin this year, and that the team may also test it for other conditions that impair breathing, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
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