Experts discover how to switch off autoimmune diseases

Scientists have made an important breakthrough in the fight against debilitating autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus by revealing how to stop cells attacking healthy body tissue, says research published in Nature.
Rather than the body’s immune system destroying its own tissue by mistake, researchers at the University of Bristol have discovered how cells convert from being aggressive to actually protecting against disease.
It’s hoped this will lead to the widespread use of antigen-specific immunotherapy as a treatment for many autoimmune disorders, including systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes and Graves’ disease.
The team was able to selectively target the cells that cause autoimmune disease by dampening down their aggression against the body’s own tissues while converting them into cells capable of protecting against disease. Although this type of conversion has been previously applied to allergies, its application to autoimmune diseases has only been appreciated recently.
The group from the University of Bristol in the UK has now revealed how the administration of fragments of the proteins that are normally the target for attack leads to correction of the autoimmune response. But most importantly, their work reveals that effective treatment is achieved by gradually increasing the dose of antigenic fragment injected.
“Insight into the molecular basis of antigen-specific immunotherapy opens up exciting new opportunities to enhance the selectivity of the approach while providing valuable markers with which to measure effective treatment,” says Prof David Wraith, who led the research. “These findings have important implications for the many patients suffering from autoimmune conditions that are currently difficult to treat.”

Image credit: Paul Cross