OSAKA, Japan, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Unwanted and unprocessed DNA in mice created symptoms typical of rheumatoid arthritis in humans, Japanese researchers say.
The body usually sloughs DNA once it outlives its usefulness, ScienceNOW Daily News said. Biochemist Shigekazu Nagata of Osaka University Medical School in Japan studied what would happen if the body didn't get rid of the DNA.
Researchers genetically altered mice so that their macrophages -- immune cells that break down waste DNA -- no longer could produce an enzyme critical to breaking down DNA, ScienceNOW said. As the waste DNA piled up, the mice developed symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis such as inflamed joints.
The team said it thought excess waste DNA somehow stimulates the macrophages to release the chemical TNF-a, ScienceNOW said. When the researchers introduced antibodies to block TNF-a activity in the mice, the symptoms reduced, ScienceNOW said.
"If we could find human rheumatoid arthritis patients carrying a defect in degrading DNA in macrophages," Nagata said, "a new treatment would be developed," ScienceNOW reported.
Anti-TNF-a drugs can be used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, but they work in only about a third of the patients and increase risks of lymphoma and serious infections.
SO I / we are missing an enzyme.....very interesting. It is the same thing for the fibro ya know, not sure if it is an enzyme or not but it is something to do with a similar thing in the cns.
Well at least someone is researching all this so perhaps someday a cure will be found. Hey...they are getting closer than they were in the 90's!
jode