14 DAY TRIAL // A new type of cell that weakens the immune system and protects the body cells from immune system attack, has been found in mice by a team of researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
This could be a major breakthrough in finding a cure for quiet Lupus, and other autoimmune diseases, according to Lupus Research Institute-funded investigator.
Usually, scientists would focus on "regulatory CD4+ T cells", also known as CD4+ Treg, to find cells that would calm down the immune system response, as some of them have proven abilities to prevent harmful inflammatory diseases and infections.
However, a new team of researchers led by Harvey Cantor, MD, found out that besides the CD4+T cells there were also the CD8+ T cells that had a positive effect on the “overreacted” response of the immune system.
These new cells do not reduce inflammation, like CD4 cells do, instead they prevent the immune system from producing antibodies that would attack normal cells.
Hye-Jung Kim, lead author of the study, and colleagues discovered this while going over the autoimmunity role of osteopontin - a protein found inside immune cells, in an unrelated LRI-funded work.
Dr Cantor says that “our LRI funds allowed us to carry out the early experiments that led to the definition of the CD8 suppressor cells.
“We were testing osteopontin's activity against a population of cells known as follicular T helper cells, and we noted that the cells were responsive to osteopontin but also that they expressed what we knew to be the target of suppressor CD8+ T cells.”
This “killer” cell decreases the number of harmful antibodies that can cause Lupus or any other autoimmune disease.
The discovery of this new cell will help exploring new therapies that could control the extreme immune system that Lupus patients have.
“These CD8+ T suppressor cells represent a potential new lever for lowering the strength of the immune response in autoimmune diseases such as Lupus,” added Dr. Cantor.
The researchers' next mission is to find out if there is a link between Lupus and defective CD8+ T suppressor cells, and whether is it possible or not to make a new drug that would calm down the immune system response in autoimmunity.
The finding was published in the September 16 issue of Nature (H Kim, et al.; Vol 467 in Letters).