Plant extract could become future lupus treatment

Chandra Mohan, lead investigator

A new class of drugs derived from a plant might offer effective treatment for lupus whilst avoiding negative side effects associated with current options, research highlights in Arthritis & Rheumatology.
A biomedical engineer in the US has found that the compound (called CDDO) suppresses the steps of lupus development in mice including the onset of kidney disease.
“The development of lupus is a two-step reaction,” explains Chandra Mohan, lead investigator. “First, the immune system develops antibodies that attack the body’s own DNA, then that activated immune system attacks the kidneys. We found that CDDO may block both of these steps.”
It’s early days and there is still much to learn about CDDO. The next step is to confirm if it supresses the immune system across the board, or if it only suppresses the specific pathways that lead to the development of lupus. And then it will be tested on humans.
But the research team says that even if the compound is shown to be generally immunosuppressive, it could still be a better treatment option than steroids for some people.
“The most exciting part of this research is that CDDO is originally plant-derived, so it’s relatively natural and carries less chance of side effects,” Chandra Mohan said. “That’s a very important point, because many of the current therapeutic agents being used for lupus have significant side effects. As far as we have tested in these experiments, we found that the CDDO compound had no known side effects. Additionally, compared to many other test compounds we’ve previously tried for treating lupus, this one appears to be much more effective.”

Image credit: Jessie Villarreal