Autoimmune diseases are a common health problem, and while immunosuppression can help relieve symptoms, it can cause other complications. In a new study, a team of scientists at the American Scripps Research Institute has developed nanoparticles that can selectively target problematic immune cells to significantly delay and even prevent arthritis, according to the New Atlas website. New Atlas Quoting ACS Nano magazine.
The immune system is the body’s first and strongest line of defense against disease, but it can sometimes get overzealous and start attacking healthy cells and tissue. Overactivity of the immune system can lead to a number of autoimmune diseases, which can be treated with drugs that suppress the immune system, but of course cause other complications, such as an increased risk of infectious diseases.
For the new study, the Scripps team of scientists investigated the possibility of applying a technique that would simply shut down the immune cells that cause autoimmune problems, while letting others do their important work of fighting off real health threats. The list of autoimmune diseases includes rheumatoid arthritis, which is triggered by a single protein in the body known as an ‘autoantigen’, around which the US study’s experiments centered.
Expressive
T cell stimulation
Escripps’ team of scientists designed nanoparticles that contain both the rheumatoid arthritis-causing autoantigen (RASA), the CD22-binding molecule, and rapamycin, a drug that stimulates the production of Treg cells which, as the name suggests , suppress other potentially harmful cells immune cells. Together, the components help the nanoparticles counteract the autoimmune reaction that causes disease without requiring a complete shutdown of the immune system.
Encouraging results
The researchers tested the nanoparticle treatment on laboratory mice engineered to be susceptible to arthritis by attacking a self-antigen called GPI.
The most encouraging results were that a third of the treated mice showed no signs of arthritis by the end of the experiment after 300 days, which represents a significant portion of the lifespan of the laboratory mice. Close examinations showed that the treatment was working as hoped, with significantly reduced GPI antibody production, as well as the number of reg T cells.
more effective immunity
“We were able to treat a third of these animals in the early stages of the study and I think there is potential to combine nanoparticles with other immunomodulatory therapies to make them more effective,” said James Paulson, lead researcher on the study, noting that the next step is “as well as demonstrating the selective technology”. Innovative against other autoimmune diseases, which are caused by an unwanted immune reaction to a self-antigen.
