USE OF OSTEOPONTIN FOR THE TREATMENT AND/OR PREVENTION OF NEUROLOGIC DISEASES

1 . A method for treating a neurologic disease, comprising:

delivering a medicament to an appropriate site of action of the neurologic disease in a patient in need, wherein said medicament comprises osteopontin, or an agonist of osteopontin activity, optionally together with a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier.

2 . A method in accordance with claim 1 , wherein said delivering step comprises administering to a patient in need thereof a nucleic acid molecule that comprises a nucleic acid sequence encoding a polypeptide comprising an amino acid sequence selected from the group consisting of:

(a) a polypeptide comprising SEQ ID NO: 1;

(b) a polypeptide comprising amino acids 1 to 168 or 17 of SEQ ID NO: 1;

(c) a polypeptide comprising amino acids 1 to 16 and 170 to 314 of SEQ ID NO: 1;

(d) a polypeptide comprising amino acids 170 to 314 of SEQ ID NO: 1;

(e) a polypeptide comprising SEQ ID NO: 2;

(f) a polypeptide comprising SEQ ID NO: 3;

(g) a mutein of any of (a) to (f), wherein the amino acid sequence has at least 40% or 50% or 60% or 70% or 80% or 90% identity to at least one of the sequences in (a) to (f);

(h) a mutein of any of (a) to (f) which is encoded by a DNA sequence which hybridizes to the complement of the native DNA sequence encoding any of (a) to (f) under moderately stringent conditions or under highly stringent conditions;

(i) a mutein of any of (a) to (f) wherein any changes in the amino acid sequence are conservative amino acid substitutions to the amino acid sequences in (a) to (f); and

(j) an isoform, fused protein, functional derivative, active fraction or circularly permutated derivative of any of (a) to (f).

3 . The method according to claim 2 , wherein the nucleic acid molecule further comprises an expression vector sequence.

4 . A method according to claim 2 for gene therapy.

5 . A method in accordance with claim 1 , wherein said delivering step comprises administering to a patient in need thereof a vector for inducing and/or enhancing the endogenous production of osteopontin, or an agonist of osteopontin activity, in a cell.

6 . The method according to claim 5 for gene therapy.

7 . A method in accordance with claim 1 , wherein said delivering step comprises administering to a patient in need thereof a cell that has been genetically modified to produce osteopontin, or an agonist of osteopontin activity.