Fw: Protection from the own immune system

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Protection from the own immune system

80,000 people in Germany suffer from multiple sclerosis – their immune

system attacks and destroys healthy nerve tissue. Researchers at the Heidelberg

University Hospital and the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg have

succeeded in vaccinating mice with specially treated, autologous immune cells

and preventing them from developing encephalitis, which is similar to multiple

sclerosis in humans. A protein of the nervous system, that is the target of the

harmful immune reaction in multiple sclerosis, was placed on the surface of the

cells; the cells were treated with an agent that suppresses immune defense.

The Heidelberg researchers have published their results – initially

online – in the prestigious journal " Proceedings of the National Academy of

Sciences USA " .

The team around Professor Dr. Terness is working in the Department

of Transplantation Immunology (Director: Professor Dr. Gerhard Opelz) of the

Institute of Immunology at the Heidelberg University Hospital. Professor Terness

and his colleagues work primarily on developing methods to prevent rejection of

donor organs without impairing the immune system.

" The vaccine against multiple sclerosis works on the same principle, "

explains Professor Terness. " We have to teach the immune system not to fight the

donor organ, or in this case its own nerve cells, as a foreign body. "

In the course of their research on organ rejection, the scientists

successfully treated immune cells (known as dendritic cells) of a donor animal

with the chemotherapeutic agent mitomycin and injected them into the organ

recipient before transplantation – the modified cells were not attacked. The

immune system of the transplant recipient subsequently accepted the tissue of

the donor animal as well. The results were published in " Transplantation " in

2007.

Subsequently, Professor Terness's team used this procedure to suppress the

harmful immune response in multiple sclerosis – in cooperation with Dr. Thilo

Oelert from the Department of Molecular Immunology at the German Cancer Research

Center they loaded immune cells from mice with a self protein from the nervous

system, treated them with mitomycin, and reinjected them into the animals.

Afterwards, experimental autoimmune encephalitis – the equivalent of multiple

sclerosis in humans – could no longer be induced in these mice; they were

resistant. " The treated cells express the target protein and simultaneously

suppress the immune response. In this manner, the immune cells become accustomed

to the protein and do not attack it later, even without the inhibitor, " explains

Professor Terness.

The researchers now want to study whether this method is also effective

for treating already-existing multiple sclerosis. They will use animal

experiments to study whether the vaccine with treated autologous cells has not

only a preventive effect, but a therapeutic effect as well.

Source: University Hospital Heidelberg

This news is brought to you by PhysOrg.com

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>Wow! This is encouraging, I'm going to look into this more. Thanks