Prof Luke O’Neill with
flasks of inflamed white blood cells from the immune system in a laboratory in
Trinity.
Tests reveal
remedy could also halt diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and alzheimer’s
Researchers in Dublin have led an international study
identifying a remarkable drug that may be able to block major diseases such as
multiple sclerosis (MS), alzheimer’s, rheumatoid arthritis and most other
inflammatory conditions.
Initial tests show it could
instantly block MS and the effects of blood poisoning in mouse models. It also
halted a rare inflammatory disease called Muckle-Wells syndrome using human
blood samples as a test.
Muckle-Wells syndrome is a
disorder characterised by episodes of skin rash, fever and joint pain.
Progressive hearing loss and kidney damage also occur with this illness.
The drug, called MCC950, stops a very early trigger that
sets off the inflammatory response to infection. While inflammation is good during
infections it can cause a wide range of serious diseases if the inflammation
remains in place.
“This is exciting, one of the
biggest discoveries we have had,” said Prof Luke O’Neill, the chairman ofbiochemistry based in the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute. “It is
fantastic, the thing we have been looking for for 30 years. This could be the
missing compound.”
Their main discovery is being
able to identify the pathway that allows the drug to block the action of a
pro-inflammatory substance in the body called NLRP3.
They also confirmed that
inflammatory diseases all share a common process, even though the parts of the
body becoming inflamed might differ, he said.
Trinity’s collaborators included the Universities of
Queensland, Michigan, Massachusetts and Bonn and their findings were published
on Monday in the journal Nature Medicine. He was co-senior author with Prof
Matt Cooper of Queensland, and lead author was Dr Rebecca Coll who worked with
Prof O’Neill.
Journal Reference: A small-molecule inhibitor of the NLRP3 inflammasome for the treatment of inflammatory diseases.Nature Medicine, 2015; DOI: 10.1038/nm.3806
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