some hopeful news for many people suffering from a lot of nasty illnesses


http://health.msn.com/centers/cancer...53655&GT1=8971

MONDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) -- The identification by U.S. scientists of genes thought to be key to autoimmune disorders could be a big step toward new treatments for these illnesses, which include lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes.

Cells called regulatory T-cells are supposed to help keep the immune system in check, but in autoimmune disease, these mechanisms can fail.

Now, researchers reporting this week in the journal Nature have identified a set of genes closely linked to regulatory T-cell function. The finding could have important implications for research into autoimmune disease and even cancer, experts say.

"This is certainly important in trying to understand how these regulatory T-cells work," said Dr. Noel Rose, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Autoimmune Disease Research in Baltimore. "Whether this will have important functional implications, only time will tell," said Rose, who was not involved in the study.

Though it is meant to shield our bodies from all pathogens foreign and domestic, the immune system can be frustratingly temperamental. For example, when presented with cancer, the system basically shrugs. In other cases, the cell's defense department can sometimes go into overdrive, leading to autoimmune disorders like systemic lupus erythematosus and Graves' disease, where the body attacks its own cells.

Both of these situations are linked to the immune system's fundamental purpose: to distinguish the body's own cells (and related entities) from foreign invaders. So, cancer cells are ignored by the immune system because they are determined to be the body's own cells. Autoimmune disorders arise when the immune system gets confused and attacks healthy tissues.

In this study, researchers from Harvard Medical School, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research focused on genes that help direct these processes via regulatory T-cells.

They focused on a protein that is found only in regulatory T-cells, called Foxp3. Foxp3 is a transcription factor -- that is, it dials up or down the production of other genes. Its significance in controlling the immune system is underscored by the fact that people with mutant Foxp3 genes develop IPEX, a syndrome marked by massive autoimmune disorders and early mortality.

Using sophisticated gene microarray technology, the team scanned the entire T-cell genome. "We identified a set of roughly 30 genes that are clearly regulated by Foxp3 and, surprisingly, a lot of them are suppressed by Foxp3," said study lead author Alexander Marson, a graduate student at Harvard Medical School and MIT.

These targets, "are probably essential to give regulatory T-cells their unique function," and include genes that have previously been implicated in immune regulation, Marson said. Mutation in one of these down-regulated genes, Ptpn22, is associated with a number of autoimmune disorders.

Marson said the work has at least two significant implications for research. "One is that we've identified this core set of genes that are probably likely to play key roles in preventing autoimmune disease," he said. "The second implication, which is maybe more long-term, is that we hope that identifying these targets will allow us to screen for drugs to mimic the function of Foxp3 and thus treat autoimmune disease."

According to Rose, treating autoimmune disorders will require enhancing either the number or effectiveness of regulatory T-cells.

"There are some tricks we might be able to use for both of those," he said. Rose also sees applications in transplant medicine and in the fight against cancer.

"Interestingly, people interested in tumor immunology are also interested in regulatory T-cells, because if you can get them out of the way, you can get rid of the tumor," he said.

Rose stressed that it remains to be seen which, if any, of these genes would make good drug targets. But he expressed confidence in the clinical potential of regulatory T-cells. "They have enormous implications, if we can figure out how to make them do what we want them to do."

Thank you for this link! My mom suffers multiple autoimmune disease including Sjögren's syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus & myositis. I am excited they're doing research about this & even more happier its JHU. Maybe I can get my mom in to some trial studies or something.

I don't feel NIH & NIDA do enough (lack of better words) for Lupus & myositis. It is like the opposite of AIDS were with AIDS you immune system is weak and you die from infections usually. With Lupus your immune system is hyperactive & it attacks healthy cells, basically your body is killing itself. They've shut my mothers immune system down with methotrexate because of it and we can't be near her if we're sick, have live vaccines etc. She is on steroids (highest dose of prednisone daily for the rest of her life... which is slowly killing her )She's lost most of the hair on her body, you can see her scalp, she can't have dental work done w/o DR approval (because of infection), and all the medicines they have her on have some sort of side effect and just make her sick in another way

If I ever win the Mega Millions I will take care of my family & donate the rest of the money into auto immune disease research. /ends rambling

I'm so sorry, diseases like these are so hard to deal with. It seems most of the time the medicines they use to treat it are merely the lesser of two evils. I really hope that they can make a viaible medicine out of this research soon.

Many autoimmune diseases are stress induced. My mother always has bad flare when she's stressed. When you think about it, stress taxes your immune system... the problem is my mother seems to be addicted to stress & she can be a little bit of a drama queen (stresses herself out by making a bigger deal of things then they are).. and I noticed that I have a tendency sometimes to get really worried about things when I shouldn't. I hope I don't inherit this.

Snuggs, I have a friend with lups. She has some pretty bad episodes, but then went to a dietian. She started on a pretty strict diet, which still had some amazingly good foods, and her lupus went into remission. Maybe it'd be worth it for your mom to give it a shot.

As far as the T cells go, if they can start controlling those, could this maybe be a step closer to finding a cure, or at least more control, for AIDS?

Thank you for this link.

Adri, can you find out what kind of diet? Thanks