Inhibiting NF-κB inducing kinase improved the motor performance of ALS animal model

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a typical neurodegenerative disorder typically characterized by inflammation activation. However, the relationship between non-canonical NF-κB (ncNF-κB) pathway activation and ALS progression is not clear.

We tested the ncNF-κB pathway in the ALS animal model including hSOD1-G93A transgenic mice and TBK1 deletion mice.We treated age-matched SOD1-G93A mice with B022 (a NIK inhibitor) to investigate the role of NIK in the ALS animal model. We also established a new mice model by crossing SOD1-G93A mice with NIK^+/- mice to further evaluate the interrelationship between the NIK and the disease progression in ALS animal model.

In this study, we found the ncNF-κB pathway was activated in SOD1-G93A animal model and TBK1 deletion model. Inhibition of NIK activity by small molecule B022 significantly improved the motor performance of the ALS animal model. However, NIK deletion enhanced the mutant SOD1 toxicity by inflammatory infiltration.

TBK1 deletion and mutant SOD1 shared the common pathological feature possibly via effects on NIK activation and inhibitor of NIK could be a novel strategy for treating ALS.