Researchers from Harvard Medical School and MIT have developed a new approach
for identifying the "self" proteins targeted in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
In a paper
published in Nature Biotechnology, H. Benjamin Larman and colleagues
showed that errant immune responses which mistakenly target the body's own
proteins rather than foreign invaders can now be examined in molecular detail.
Further research could lead to new insights into the exact causes of these
debilitating autoimmune disorders. The results come from the laboratory of
Stephen Elledge, the Gregor Mendel Professor of Genetics and Medicine at HMS and
senior author of the study.
The immune system, the body's main line of
defense against disease, has a critical responsibility to distinguish
self-derived proteins from those of invaders like viruses and bacteria.
Autoimmune diseases arise when a person's immune system fails to make that
critical distinction and mistakenly attacks a normal tissue, such as nerve,
joint, or insulin-producing pancreatic cells. These disorders are usually
progressive and in some cases even lead to life-threating disease. Understanding
where the immune system went wrong has been a major goal for generations of
biomedical researchers.
"Knowledge of the self-antigens involved in
autoimmune processes is important not only for understanding disease etiology,
but also for developing diagnostic tests," the authors write. "In addition,
physicians may someday use antigen-specific therapies to destroy or disable
auto-reactive immune cells."
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