ArticleBMC medicine2013
Sodium vanadate combined with L-ascorbic acid delays disease progression, enhances motor performance, and ameliorates muscle atrophy and weakness in mice with spinal muscular atrophy.
Article in BMC medicine, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- A standardized framework resolves ambiguity in motor neuron loss across neurodegenerative diseases.Acta neuropathologica communications · 2026Pooled it
- A standardized framework resolves ambiguity in motor neuron loss across neurodegenerative diseases.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Drug Screening and Drug Repositioning as Promising Therapeutic Approaches for Spinal Muscular Atrophy Treatment.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2020Review
- Motor Neuron Gene Therapy: Lessons from Spinal Muscular Atrophy for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2017Review
- Systemic administration of a recombinant AAV1 vector encoding IGF-1 improves disease manifestations in SMA mice.Molecular therapy : the journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy · 2014Article
- Spinal muscular atrophy: an update on therapeutic progress.Biochimica et biophysica acta · 2013Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundProximal spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a neurodegenerative disorder that causes infant mortality, has no effective treatment. Sodium vanadate has shown potential for the treatment of SMA; however, vanadate-induced toxicity in vivo remains an obstacle for its clinical application. We evaluated the therapeutic potential of sodium vanadate combined with a vanadium detoxification agent, L-ascorbic acid, in a SMA mouse model.
methodsSodium vanadate (200 μM), L-ascorbic acid (400 μM), or sodium vanadate combined with L-ascorbic acid (combined treatment) were applied to motor neuron-like NSC34 cells and fibroblasts derived from a healthy donor and a type II SMA patient to evaluate the cellular viability and the efficacy of each treatment in vitro. For the in vivo studies, sodium vanadate (20 mg/kg once daily) and L-ascorbic acid (40 mg/kg once daily) alone or in combination were orally administered daily on postnatal days 1 to 30. Motor performance, pathological studies, and the effects of each treatment (vehicle, L-ascorbic acid, sodium vanadate, and combined treatment) were assessed and compared on postnatal days (PNDs) 30 and 90. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to evaluate the survival rate, with P < 0.05 indicating significance. For other studies, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Student's t test for paired variables were used to measure significant differences (P < 0.05) between values.
resultsCombined treatment protected cells against vanadate-induced cell death with decreasing B cell lymphoma 2-associated X protein (Bax) levels. A month of combined treatment in mice with late-onset SMA beginning on postnatal day 1 delayed disease progression, improved motor performance in adulthood, enhanced survival motor neuron (SMN) levels and motor neuron numbers, reduced muscle atrophy, and decreased Bax levels in the spinal cord. Most importantly, combined treatment preserved hepatic and renal function and substantially decreased vanadium accumulation in these organs.
conclusionsCombined treatment beginning at birth and continuing for 1 month conferred protection against neuromuscular damage in mice with milder types of SMA. Further, these mice exhibited enhanced motor performance in adulthood. Therefore, combined treatment could present a feasible treatment option for patients with late-onset SMA.
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