Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2018 Mar;23(3):673-680.
doi: 10.1016/j.drudis.2018.01.011. Epub 2018 Jan 6.

Astrocytes as targets for drug discovery

Kirill Gorshkov  1 , Francis Aguisanda  1 , Natasha Thorne  1 , Wei Zheng  2
Affiliations
Review

Astrocytes as targets for drug discovery

Kirill Gorshkov et al. Drug Discov Today. 2018 Mar.

Abstract

Recent studies have illuminated the crucial role of astrocytes in maintaining proper neuronal health and function. Abnormalities in astrocytic functions have now been implicated in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), Huntington's disease (HD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Historically, drug development programs for neurodegenerative diseases generally target only neurons, overlooking the contributions of astrocytes. Therefore, targeting both disease neurons and astrocytes offers a new approach for drug development for the treatment of neurological diseases. Looking forward, the co-culturing of human neurons with astrocytes could be the next evolutionary step in drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Number of publications per year for ‘astrocytes and disease’. An analysis of Web of Science search results for the search terms ‘astrocytes’ AND ‘disease’ revealed a steady increase in publications, including articles, reviews, and proceedings papers. Data from Web of Science (https://wcs.webofknowledge.com). Search completed in February 2017.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Azevedo F, et al. Equal numbers of neuronal and nonneuronal cells make the human brain an isometrically scaled-up primate brain. J. Comp. Neurol. 2009;513:532–541. - PubMed
    1. Taft JR, et al. Distribution of GFAP+ astrocytes in adult and neonatal rat brain. Int. J. Neurosci. 2005;115:1333–1343. - PubMed
    1. Zheng Y, Barres B. Astrocyte heterogeneity: an underappreciated topic in neurobiology. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 2010;20:588–594. - PubMed
    1. Sofroniew M, Vinters H. Astrocytes: biology and pathology. Acta Neuropathol. 2010;119:7–35. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Krencik R, Zhang S-C. Directed differentiated of functional astroglial subtypes from human pluripotent stem cells. Nat. Protoc. 2011;6:1710–1717. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances