A study involving researchers from the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) and the Multiple Sclerosis Center of Catalonia (Cemcat) has found that gastrointestinal microbes play a much greater role in the origin of multiple sclerosis than what was believed.

The finding is a new approach to develop therapies that reeducate the immune system avoiding attacks on the structures of the central nervous system.

The work, directed by the Catalan biologist Mireia Sospedra, who has been working for three years at the University of Zurich with the collaboration of researchers from the Clinical Neuroimmunology group of VHIR and Cemcat, is published on Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks and damages myelin, a protective layer in neurons, a biological membrane composed of proteins and fatty substances, on which research efforts have focused to find the antigen to treat the disease.

In this study, researchers have seen how T cells, immune cells responsible for pathological processes, react against a protein called GDP-L-fucose synthase. This enzyme is formed in human cells, as well as in bacteria that are frequently found in the gastrointestinal flora of patients suffering from multiple sclerosis.

“We believe that immune cells are activated in the intestine and then migrate to the brain, where they cause an inflammatory cascade when they encounter the human variant of their target antigen,” explained the leader of the study, Dr. Mireia Sospedra, a graduate in Biology by the University of Barcelona (UB) and a doctorate in Immunology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).

From the VHIR and Cemcat, doctors Carmen Espejo and Herena Eixarch, have contributed to the study with the determination of the encephalitogenic capacity of GDP-L-fucose synthase in experimental models of multiple sclerosis, specifically, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.

Sospedra hopes that these findings can soon be translated into therapy for multiple sclerosis and, in fact, plans to test the immunoactive components of GDP-L-fucose synthase with an approach to reeducate the immune system.

This approach involves extracting blood from patients with sclerosis and then attaching the immunoactive fragments of GDP-L-fucose synthase to the surface of red blood cells in a laboratory.

When blood is reintroduced into the patients’ bloodstream, the immunoactive fragments help to “reeducate” their immune system and “tolerate” their own brain tissue. “Our approach specifically targets pathological autoreactive immune cells,” according to Dr. Sospedra.

According to Espejo, this approach differs radically from other currently available treatments, which affect the entire immune system. While often manage to halt the progression of the disease, current treatments also weaken the immune system; therefore, can cause serious side effects.

 

Source: Agencia ID