New vaccine offers hope to reverse diseases like arthritis, Type-1 diabetes

A new type of vaccine that does not shut down the immune system has shown promise in the lab to completely reverse autoimmune diseases like arthritis multiple sclerosis Type1 diabetes and Crohns diseaseA typical vaccine teaches the human immune system to recognise a virus or bacteria as an enemy that should be attacked Currently autoimmune diseases are generally treated with drugs that broadly shut down the immune systemThe new inverse vaccine developed by researchers at the University of Chicago does just the opposite it removes the immune systems memory of one moleculeWhile such immune memory erasure would be unwanted for infectious diseases it can stop autoimmune reactions like those seen in multiple sclerosis Type I diabetes rheumatoid arthritis or Crohns disease in which the immune system attacks a persons healthy tissuesThe inverse vaccine described in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering takes advantage of how the liver naturally marks molecules from brokendown cells with do not attack flags to prevent autoimmune reactions to cells that die by natural processesIn the past we showed that we could use this approach to prevent autoimmunity said lead author Jeffrey Hubbell Professor in Tissue Engineering from the varsityrsquos Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering PMEBut what is so exciting about this work is that we have shown that we can treat diseases like multiple sclerosis after there is already ongoing inflammation which is more useful in a realworld context he addedThe human body has a mechanism for ensuring that immune reactions dont occur in response to every damaged cell in the body a phenomenon known as peripheral immune tolerance and carried out in the liver The team discovered in recent years that tagging molecules with a sugar known as Nacetylgalactosamine pGal could mimic this process sending the molecules to the liver where tolerance to them developsThe idea is that we can attach any molecule we want to pGal and it will teach the immune system to tolerate it explained HubbellRather than rev up immunity as with a vaccine we can tamp it down in a very specific way with an inverse vaccineIn the new study the researchers focused on a multiplesclerosislike disease in which the immune system attacks myelin leading to weakness and numbness loss of vision and eventually mobility problems and paralysisThe team linked myelin proteins to pGal and tested the effect of the new inverse vaccine The immune system they found stopped attacking myelin allowing nerves to function correctly again and reversing symptoms of disease in animalsIn a series of other experiments the scientists showed that the same approach worked to minimise other ongoing immune reactionsThese treatments can be very effective but youre also blocking the immune responses necessary to fight off infections and so there are a lot of side effects said HubbellIf we could treat patients with an inverse vaccine instead it could be much more specific and lead to fewer side effectsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever