Fluphenazine, an antipsychotic compound, ameliorates Alzheimer's disease by clearing amyloid beta accumulation in C. elegans.

Abstract

The aging population worldwide faces an increasing burden of age-related conditions, with Alzheimer's disease being a prominent neurodegenerative concern. Drug repurposing, the practice of identifying new therapeutic applications for existing drugs, offers a promising avenue for accelerated intervention. In this study, we utilized the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to screen a library of 1760 FDA-approved compounds, both with and without rapamycin, to assess potential synergistic effects on yeast growth. We identified 87 compounds that showed synergistic effect with rapamycin and caused growth defects in yeast. Ten compounds from this list were further screened for their effects on paralysis in a Caenorhabditis elegans model of Alzheimer's disease. We found that three compounds synergistically delayed paralysis in combination with rapamycin, suggesting a potential functional redundancy or pathway convergence with mTOR signaling. Additionally, four other compounds delayed paralysis when tested at different concentrations. Moreover, we tested fluphenazine, an antipsychotic drug identified in our screen and found that it enhanced the overall health of treated worms. Western blot and X-34 staining confirmed that fluphenazine reduced amyloid-beta accumulation. Although these findings were obtained in yeast and C. elegans models, further validation in mammalian systems is required to confirm their translational relevance. Nevertheless, the results underscore the significant potential of repurposed drugs to accelerate the discovery of therapeutics for Alzheimer's disease.