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2020 (1)

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Dissertation
Towards novel anti-seizure hits via an EKP-induced zebrafish seizure model

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Abstract

Epilepsy is a common chronic heterogenic neurological disorder that affects approximately 70 million people worldwide. Epilepsy is characterized by the abnormal propensity of having spontaneous recurrent ánd unprovoked seizures. Unfortunately, it is estimated that about 30% of the human epilepsy population cannot control their seizures with the current existing anti-seizure drugs (ASDs) that are on the market. This phenonemon, also called refractory epilepsy, is defined as a failure of adequate trials of two tolerated, appropriately chosen ASD regimens to achieve sustained seizure freedom. As a result, epilepsy is a relevant medical and socio-economic burden that urgently needs new and more efficacious pharmacological approaches. Given the need for new ASDs, we conducted a study wherein 50 compounds were assessed for their anti-seizure effects in locomotor experiments using the zebrafish EKP seizure model. Zebrafish are an emerging in vivo animal model for translational research on human neurological diseases like epilepsy and present major advantages over other animal models. Namely, zebrafish larvae are very small and amenable to a 96-well plate which allows for water immersion of micrograms of investigational compounds and thus a very quick library screen in a high-throughput fashion. Additionaly, zebrafish demonstrate a high degree of genetic and CNS similarity to humans and their embryos and larvae are transparent and develop fast. The EKP zebrafish seizure model has provided evidence that it possibly induces pharmacoresistant seizures in zebrafish larvae without bias for any molecular mechanism of action (MMOA) of the ASDs tested. For this reason, the addition of this model to the armamentarium of pharmacoresistant seizure models has been very important, as it could potentially provide us with anti-seizure molecules with improved efficacy over existing ASDs or, even better, with a novel MMOA. Initially, we tested every compound of the library at concentrations of 10 and 2 uM in 7 dpf D/L larvae. Unfortunately, we did observe toxicity for a few compounds after tracking at 10 uM. Therefore, we performed a toxicity screen on all of the compounds at concentrations of 2 uM and 10 uM during observational experiments after short (2h) and long (22h ±2h) incubation. Tracking was eventually repeated with the remaining compounds for which no toxicity was observed at 10 uM and after a long incubation period. To further explore the anti-seizure effects of the non-toxic investigational compounds, more locomotor experiments will have to be performed in the EKP model.

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