Top
image credit: Unsplash

Treating multiple sclerosis with an antigen-specific cell therapy

November 4, 2020

Existing multiple sclerosis therapies systematically modulate the immune system to dampen its erroneous attack on the protective myelin sheaths around nerve cells, which is the hallmark of the autoimmune disease. But this approach puts patients at a higher risk of infection.

Scientists at Thomas Jefferson University said they have found a way to train the immune system to tolerate self-antigens that trigger inflammatory responses in MS while leaving the rest of the immune system intact.

They isolated tiny sacs called extracellular vesicles from cells known as oligodendrocytes. The sacs contained myelin antigens, and when they injected those particles into mice, it suppressed MS, according to a new study published in Science Translational Medicine.

Read More on FierceBiotech