The overall goal of this project consists in the identification and characterization of the pharmacological activity of inhibitory drugs of vacuolar ATPases in preventing the onset and progression of septic shock.
The rational of this research and development objective is based on results, obtained during a previous collaboration with the chemitechnology company Nikem research, showing that V-ATPase inhibitors are powerful inhibitors of some pro-inflammatory activities of leukocytes and are capable of blocking the induction of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), the animal model of Multiple Sclerosis (MS), an inflammatory disease of the brain. An uncontrolled inflammatory reaction is the pathogenetic background of both MS and septic shock (although in this last case the reaction is much faster, generalized and severe. The results obtained in this project suggest that V-ATPases inhibitors are useful drugs also for the treatment of onset and progression of septic shock.