Team Claims Leap Forward Against Celiac Disease

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Team Claims Leap Forward Against Celiac Disease

Wed Oct 16, 2:15 PM ET

By Woodman

LONDON (Reuters Health) - Scientists said on Wednesday they may be able to

develop a potential vaccine for celiac disease, the common, debilitating

complaint that forces sufferers to eat only gluten-free foods.

A team at Oxford University said they had identified the protein components

in cereal crops responsible for the disorder, which affects around one in

every hundred people.

Principal investigator Dr. , a gastroenterologist now based

at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia, said the finding dramatically

increased the possibility of developing a therapeutic vaccine.

, who will give details of the discovery at the Australian

Gastroenterology Week conference in Adelaide on Thursday, said in a

statement that Australian researchers would soon begin work on designing and

testing the potential vaccine.

He said the research confirmed that almost all people with celiac disease

react to a common set of protein sequences in gliadin, part of the gluten

protein in wheat, rye and barley.

" This opens the way for a specific diagnostic test for the disease as well

as new prevention and treatment strategies, and even the possibilities of

producing wheat that does not contain the rogue sequence, " said BTG, the

London-based technology transfer company that has bought the rights to the

discovery.

More than 90% of people diagnosed with celiac disease have a gene known as

HLA-DQ2, which facilitates the initiation of an immune response to gliadin.

But environmental factors also play a role in the expression of the disease

and it is this aspect of the disease that researchers believe can be

modified.

said future research is still needed to prove that a peptide could

be used to desensitize or induce tolerance in people with celiac disease.

At present, the only approved treatment for celiac disease is lifelong

avoidance of gluten in the diet. This can be difficult and costly for

sufferers, who may also be at risk of cross contamination during food

processing.

The epitopes, or antibody receptor sites, on gliadin that are recognized by

gluten-specific immune system T-cells were isolated by inventors based at

the University of Oxford.

The inventors have shown that by modifying the bioactive epitope to produce

a number of similar structures, these modified versions will compete with

the T-cell recognition site and inhibit the immune response when given with

the unmodified, bioactive epitope.

These modified peptides could therefore form the basis of a specific

therapeutic treatment for celiac disease.