“INVERSE VACCINE” MAY REVERSE AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES LIKE MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS

Ahealthy immune system protects the body from infection from viruses and bacteria. Sometimes, the immune system is mistakenly programmed into thinking healthy tissues or cells in the body are harmful organisms it needs to attack. This is what causes an autoimmune disease. There are more than 100 autoimmune diseases, but some of the most commonly known ones include multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes and Crohn’s disease.

In a new study conducted by the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, researchers claim that they have developed a new type of vaccine called an “inverse vaccine” via a mice model that is able to completely reverse autoimmune diseases without fully shutting down the rest of the immune system in mice. The study was published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.

An estimated one in every 10 people worldwide has an autoimmune disease. Generally speaking, there are currently no cures for autoimmune diseases. Doctors use a variety of methods. including medications, surgery and lifestyle changes, to control symptoms, which are sometimes referred to as “flares”.

For the study, the researchers developed a new type of vaccine called an “inverse vaccine”. According to the authors, while a regular vaccine induces immune cell activation to create cells that can kill infected cells, and generate antibodies that can bind to and neutralise viruses that would infect them, an inverse vaccine can instead unwind such immunity. For an autoimmune disease, these inverse vaccines can deactivate immune cells that have erroneously been licensed to attack one’s own cells and even generate cells that can act so as to further tamp down immunity.

At present, autoimmune diseases are treated in a manner that creates non-specific immune suppression, rather than immune modulation specific to the autoimmune disease. These immune suppressive approaches must be given chronically. On the other hand, a vaccine approach has the potential to be durable and possibly, even curative, if durability is good.

The researchers tested the inverse vaccine by using a mouse model of a multiple sclerosis-like disease called autoimmune encephalomyelitis. In both conditions, the immune system mistakenly attacks myelin, which forms a protective sheath around the body’s nerves, including those in the spinal cord and brain.

When the inverse vaccine was administered, the researchers reported that the immune system stopped attacking myelin. This allowed the nerves to begin functioning correctly and reversed disease symptoms in the mice.

The scientists explained that the body has a number of mechanisms to prevent autoimmunity, including the existence of specialised cells in the liver that clear our body’s ageing and dying cells in the blood in a way that induces and maintains tolerance to the dying cell debris. The study approach involves the creation of molecules that both look like debris from dying cells and bear the proteins that are attacked in a particular autoimmune disease. This helps to hijack one of the mechanisms the body uses to maintain tolerance.

This general approach is currently in clinical testing in celiac disease and multiple sclerosis, and the researchers await to see results from the testing.