Multiple sclerosis may soon have a cure
Published: November 4, 2005
Here is good news for multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Researchers trying a novel therapy on a mouse version of MS found that the mice showed almost no inflammation of the myelin sheath and no nerve damage, and recovered with fewer and far less severe relapses.
MS is an incurable degenerative disease caused by the body’s immune system attacking the protective myelin sheath encasing the nerves that make up the central nervous system. The nerve fibres become increasingly damaged by scar tissue known as sclerosis, which leads to paralysis and loss of speech and vision.
The therapy targets immune system cells called T-cells. The new treatment, which uses a class of molecules called kynurenines, works by inhibiting the T-cells’ production of inflammatory molecules and prompting them to produce agents that “mop up” the molecules.
Larry Steinman at Stanford School of Medicine in California, US, and Michael Platten at the University of Tubingen in Germany, and colleagues, selected a break-down product - a kynurenine - of a naturally occurring amino acid called tryptophan. Tryptophan is a constituent of most proteins and is known to play an important role in immunity.
They induced an MS-type illness called experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis in 24 mice. On the occasion of their first relapse half were given a daily dose of a synthetic version of the kynurenine for 49 days.
“All the mice went into remission, but the mice on the tablets stayed healthy for much longer. The relapses were far less severe and they did not have a return of the paralysis. The drug actually suppressed the disease and slowed its progression. Instead of being pro-inflammatory, the T-cells became anti-inflammatory, helping to heal the myelin sheath and suppressing paralysis,” New Scientist quoted Platten as saying.
“And, when we gave a blood transfusion from mice who had received the treatment to other sick mice, the transferred T-cells retained their ability to suppress the disease,” Steinman added.
The researchers, however, caution that the mouse model of MS may show differences to the human disease, as drugs that have worked on mice in the past, have not had the same success in humans.
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