Our immune system is made up of multiple intelligent defenses built into our bodies, and when those defenses go awry, illnesses such as: multiple sclerosis (MS). Scientists may have discovered new ways to control potentially dangerous autoimmune reactions.
A special method was developed by a team at Harvard Medical School at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the United States. probiotics was able to modulate the activity of dendritic cell. These cells play an important role in managing immune cell responses.
Injecting probiotics into the intestines of mice that induced symptoms similar to MS, autoimmunity It was suppressed in major regions of the brain. If this treatment works in humans, it could help some of the most harmful diseases that exist today.
What is particularly promising with this treatment is that it is not only sustained and sustained application, but is also more precise than other treatments. existing optiondoes not seem to have many side effects.
“Man-made probiotics could revolutionize the treatment of chronic diseases.” To tell Brigham and Women’s neuroscientist Francisco Quintana.
“If we could use living microbes to produce drugs within the body, they would be able to continue to produce active compounds as needed, which is essential when considering lifelong illnesses that require ongoing treatment. .”
To make probiotics work, the team needed to delve deeper into the function of dendritic cells in autoimmunity, which is still not fully understood.they found something new biochemical pathway These cells have the potential to “put the brakes on” the immune system.
People with autoimmune diseases don’t have these brakes working properly, leaving their bodies vulnerable. “Good bacteria” designed by researchers lactatewhich in turn set off the brakes on the immune system.
No genetically engineered probiotics were observed in the bloodstream of the mice, suggesting that the gut and brain communicate directly with each other, and dendritic cells are present in both locations in the body.
Although this study included a mouse model with symptoms similar to MS, other immune-mediated diseases can also be targeted in the same way. Autoimmune diseases affect approximately 5-8% of the US population, but available treatment options are limited, especially because drugs have difficulty crossing the blood-brain barrier.
In the future, researchers also hope to manipulate different types of probiotics to produce different compounds with different results. More research is needed, but this is a promising start.
“The availability of living cells as a source of medicines in the body has great potential to enable more personalized and precise treatments.” To tell Quintana.
“If these gut-dwelling microbes are powerful enough to affect inflammation in the brain, we believe we can harness that power elsewhere.”
This research Nature.
