Suicide Cell Developed to Treat Rheumatoid Arhtritis

In a properly functioning immune system, the immune cells are supposed to die after attacking an invading bacteria or virus. This process of cell death is called apoptosis.

“In apoptosis, a cell quietly dies off and gets removed from the system. That’s the way our body has of renewing itself all the time. In your stomach you have it, in your skin you have it. Almost all of your cells eventually die off and you get new cells.” says researcher Harris Perlman, of the Northwestern University Division of Rheumatology at Feinberg School of Medicine.

However, in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, the immune system macrophages, or white blood cells, don’t die, but continue to proliferate in the blood. These cells tend to build up in the joints, attacking the healthy bone and cartilage, resulting in pain and inflammation.

There are no current effective and nontoxic methods to stop this overproduction.

But recently, Perlman and a team of researchers from the Feinberg School of Medicine discovered that immune cells in RA are deficient in the Bim, or suicide, molecule, which controls the cell’s self destruct mechanism. The team then set out to create an imitation of the Bim molecule, called the BH3 mimetic.

The researchers then injected the new drug into mice with rheumatoid arthritis and it floated into the macrophages like a ghost, leading to its nickname – Casper the Ghost.

The new drug not only resulted in the immune cells self destructing, the researchers found the disease went into remission. In their research, they also noted that the BH3 mimetic molecule reduced joint swelling and bone loss.

“This new therapy stopped the disease cold in 75 percent of the mice,” said Perlman. “The best part was we didn’t see any toxicity. This has a lot of potential for creating an entirely new treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.”

In the future Perlman and his team plan to create a better system to deliver the drug, to make it more targeted and enable it to live longer in the body. He estimates that it will be five to ten years before a viable drug would be available if the therapy lives up to its promise.

The study was published in the February issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism.

Originally posted 2010-02-11 07:00:41. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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