EpiVario, Inc., an emerging biotech company developing novel therapeutics for memory-related psychiatric disorders, highlighted preclinical research findings that could lead to a treatment approach for PTSD. Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and co-authored by the academic co-founders of EpiVario, the study demonstrates that fear memories can be controlled through the enzyme acetyl-CoA synthetase 2 (ACSS2). The team also confirmed that a small molecule inhibitor against ACSS2 can block the epigenetic process required for the consolidation of stress and fear memories.
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In the study, published online August 5th in PNAS, the researchers identified the metabolic enzyme ACSS2 as a key regulator of fear memory, and showed that genetic deletion or pharmaceutical inhibition of ACSS2 greatly reduces the ability of mice and rats to form long-term memories of trauma events.
The study demonstrates that fear memories can be controlled through the enzyme acetyl-CoA synthetase 2 (ACSS2).
The study was conducted at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and was led by EpiVario Co-Founder Shelley Berger, PhD, Daniel S. Och University Professor and Director of the Penn Epigenetic Institute, and Co-Founder Philipp Mews, PhD, currently an Instructor at The Friedman Brain Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, along with Tanya Corman, PhD, a postdoctoral scientist at University of Pennsylvania. Investigational small molecule compounds were provided by EpiVario, which is developing ACSS2 inhibitors as a therapeutic for memory related neuropsychiatric disorders. This work was further enabled through EpiVario collaborators Dr. Marcelo Wood at UC Irvine, and Dr. Hagit Cohen at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
“These new results are exciting, as they validate our earlier discovery that ACSS2 is critical for activating genes during the creation of fear memories. Similarly, whenever we recall a traumatic event, these genes are activated in the same way, a process called reconsolidation, which is important in PTSD. In principle, reducing that reconsolidation by briefly blocking ACSS2, we expect to weaken trauma memories that underlie PTSD,” said Dr. Mews.