Health

Six-hour ‘undo’ button: GAI-17 rewinds stroke damage and may beat Alzheimer’s

Protein aggregation inhibitor shows lower levels of cell death and paralysis in mice with acute strokes.

Date:
Source:: Osaka Metropolitan University
Summary:: Stroke kills millions, but Osaka researchers have unveiled GAI-17, a drug that halts toxic GAPDH clumping, slashes brain damage and paralysis in mice—even when given six hours post-stroke—and shows no major side effects, hinting at a single therapy that could also tackle Alzheimer’s and other tough neurological disorders.

FULL STORY

One Drug Offers Hope for Stroke Patients — GAI-17 shields mouse brains from stroke damage, restores movement, works up to six hours after onset, and does so without harming heart or vessels, opening doors to treat various neurodegenerative diseases. Credit: Shutterstock

Stroke is said to be the second leading cause of death worldwide after heart disease. To prevent the death of neurons in the brain, a research group led by Osaka Metropolitan University Associate Professor Hidemitsu Nakajima of the Graduate School of Veterinary Science has developed a drug that inhibits a protein involved in cell death.

The multifunctional protein GAPDH (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase) is linked to pathogenesis in many intractable brain and nervous system diseases. The team developed GAI-17, a GAPDH aggregation inhibitor. When this inhibitor was administered to model mice with acute strokes, there was a significantly lower level of brain cell death and paralysis compared to untreated mice.

GAI-17 also showed no side effects of concern, such as adverse effects on the heart or cerebrovascular system. Furthermore, experiments using GAI-17 showed improvement in the mice even when administered six hours after a stroke.

"The GAPDH aggregation inhibitor we have developed is expected to be a single drug that can treat many intractable neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's disease," stated Professor Nakajima. "Going forward, we will verify the effectiveness of this approach in disease models other than stroke and promote further practical research toward the realization of a healthy and long-lived society."

The findings were published in iScience.

Story Source:

Materials ^[1] provided by Osaka Metropolitan University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

Masanori Itakura, Takeya Kubo, Akihiro Kaneshige, Masatoshi Nakatsuji, Naoki Harada, Ryoichi Yamaji, Takatoshi Hikida, Takashi Inui, Hidemitsu Nakajima. Inhibition of GAPDH aggregation as a potential treatment for acute ischemic stroke. iScience, 2025; 28 (6): 112564 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.112564 ^[2]

Cite This Page:

Osaka Metropolitan University. "Six-hour ‘undo’ button: GAI-17 rewinds stroke damage and may beat Alzheimer’s." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 July 2025. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/07/250715043357.htm>.

Osaka Metropolitan University. (2025, July 15). Six-hour ‘undo’ button: GAI-17 rewinds stroke damage and may beat Alzheimer’s. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 15, 2025 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/07/250715043357.htm

Osaka Metropolitan University. "Six-hour ‘undo’ button: GAI-17 rewinds stroke damage and may beat Alzheimer’s." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/07/250715043357.htm (accessed July 15, 2025).

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Fasting twice a week could be a game-changer for type 2 diabetes

Intermittent energy restriction, time-restricted eating and continuous energy restriction can all improve blood sugar levels and body weight in people with obesity and type 2 diabetes, according to a study presented at ENDO 2025, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in San Francisco, California.

"This study is the first to compare the effects of three different dietary interventions intermittent energy restriction (IER), time-restricted eating (TRE) and continuous energy restriction (CER) in managing type 2 diabetes with obesity," said Haohao Zhang, Ph.D., chief physician at The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University in Zhengzhou, China.

Although researchers identified improved HbA1c levels, and adverse events were similar across the three groups, the IER group showed greater advantages in reducing fasting blood glucose, improving insulin sensitivity, lowering triglycerides, and strengthening adherence to the dietary interventions.

"The research fills a gap in directly comparing 5:2 intermittent energy restriction with a 10-hour time-restricted eating in patients with obesity and type 2 diabetes. The findings provide scientific evidence for clinicians to choose appropriate dietary strategies when treating such patients," Zhang said.

Zhang and colleagues performed a single-center, randomized, parallel-controlled trial at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from November 19, 2021 to November 7, 2024.

Ninety patients were randomly assigned in a 1:1:1 ratio to the IER, TRE or CER group, with consistent weekly caloric intake across all groups. A team of nutritionists supervised the 16-week intervention.

Of those enrolled, 63 completed the study. There were 18 females and 45 males, with an average age of 36.8 years, a mean diabetes duration of 1.5 years, a baseline BMI of 31.7 kg/m², and an HbA1c of 7.42%.

At the end of the study, there were no significant differences in HbA1c reduction and weight loss between the IER, TRE and CER groups. However, the absolute decrease in HbA1c and body weight was greatest in the IER group.

Compared to TRE and CER, IER significantly reduced fasting blood glucose and triglycerides and increased the Matsuda index, a measure of whole-body insulin sensitivity. Uric acid and liver enzyme levels exhibited no statistically significant changes from baseline in any study group.

Two patients in the IER group and the TRE group, and three patients in the CER group, experienced mild hypoglycemia.

The IER group had the highest adherence rate (85%), followed by the CER group at 84% and the TRE group at 78%. Both the IER and CER groups showed statistically significant differences compared with the TRE group.

Zhang said these findings highlight the feasibility and effectiveness of dietary interventions for people who have obesity and type 2 diabetes.

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The big tax and spending package ^[1] President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025, will cut government spending on health care by more than US$1 trillion ^[2] over the next decade.

Because the final version of the legislation moved swiftly through the Senate and the House, estimates regarding the number of people likely to lose their health insurance coverage were incomplete when Congress approved it ^[3] by razor-thin...

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Six-hour ‘undo’ button: GAI-17 rewinds stroke damage and may beat Alzheimer’s

Protein aggregation inhibitor shows lower levels of cell death and paralysis in mice with acute strokes.

Premises plea as wellbeing charity told to move

Fasting twice a week could be a game-changer for type 2 diabetes

How 17M Americans enrolled in Medicaid and ACA plans could lose their health insurance by 2034

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Protein aggregation inhibitor shows lower levels of cell death and paralysis in mice with acute strokes.

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