Volume 28, Issue 3 pp. 1056-1081
REVIEW

Minocycline in neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases: An update

Diego Romero-Miguel

Diego Romero-Miguel

Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, Spain

Contribution: Data curation (supporting), Formal analysis (lead), Funding acquisition (supporting), Methodology (equal), Writing - original draft (equal)

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Nicolás Lamanna-Rama

Nicolás Lamanna-Rama

Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, Spain

Contribution: ​Investigation (equal), Visualization (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)

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Marta Casquero-Veiga

Marta Casquero-Veiga

Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, Spain

CIBER de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM), Madrid

Contribution: Formal analysis (equal), Funding acquisition (equal), ​Investigation (equal), Validation (equal), Visualization (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)

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Vanessa Gómez-Rangel

Vanessa Gómez-Rangel

Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, Spain

Contribution: Writing - review & editing (equal)

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,Manuel Desco

Corresponding Author

Manuel Desco

Departamento de Bioingeniería e Ingeniería Aeroespacial, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain

Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, Spain

CIBER de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM), Madrid

Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares, Madrid, Spain

Correspondence

Manuel Desco and María Luisa Soto-Montenegro, Laboratorio de Imagen. Medicina Experimental, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Dr. Esquerdo, 46, E-28007 Madrid, Spain.

E-mail: [email protected] (MD); [email protected] (MLS)

Contribution: Writing - review & editing (equal)

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María Luisa Soto-Montenegro

Corresponding Author

María Luisa Soto-Montenegro

Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, Spain

CIBER de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM), Madrid

Correspondence

Manuel Desco and María Luisa Soto-Montenegro, Laboratorio de Imagen. Medicina Experimental, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Dr. Esquerdo, 46, E-28007 Madrid, Spain.

E-mail: [email protected] (MD); [email protected] (MLS)

Contribution: Conceptualization (lead), Funding acquisition (lead), ​Investigation (equal), Supervision (lead), Writing - review & editing (equal)

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First published: 12 November 2020
Citations: 58

Abstract

Background and purpose

Minocycline is a broad-spectrum antibiotic, effective as a chronic treatment for recurrent bacterial infections. Beyond its antibiotic action, minocycline also has important anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and antiapoptotic properties. Its efficacy has therefore been evaluated in many neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases that have an inflammatory basis. Our aim was to review preclinical and clinical studies performed in neurological and psychiatric diseases whose treatment involved the use of minocycline and thereby to discern the possible beneficial effect of minocycline in these disorders.

Methods

Completed and ongoing preclinical studies and clinical trials of minocycline for both neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders, published from January 1995 to January 2020, were identified through searching relevant databases (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/, https://clinicaltrials.gov/). A total of 74 preclinical studies and 44 clinical trials and open-label studies were selected.

Results

The results of the nearly 20 years of research identified are diverse. While minocycline mostly proved to be effective in animal models, clinical results showed divergent outcomes, with positive results in some studies counterbalanced by a number of cases with no significant improvements. Specific data for each disease are further individually described in this review.

Conclusions

Despite minocycline demonstrating antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, discrepancies between preclinical and clinical data indicate that we should be cautious in analyzing the outcomes. Improving and standardizing protocols and refining animal models could help us to determine if minocycline really is a useful drug in the treatment of these pathologies.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare that they have no financial or other conflicts of interest.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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