A strategy to prevent and reverse multiple sclerosis (MS) might finally be in sight; a team of researchers has developed has achieved such a feat in mice.
An experiment conducted on mice allowed scientists o target and suppress destructive immune cells that play a role in the development of MS.
According to the study, the therapy reduced clinical symptoms of the condition in mouse models of the disease.
The Naked Scientist, Chris Smith explains.
What is MS? This is where your own immune system attacks your nervous system. What its going for is a clutch of proteins in a substance called myelin....this relentless immune attack slowly strips away the mylen and it means the ability of nerve cells to communicate faithfully to each other is progressively lost.— Chris Smith, The Naked Scientist
Researchers have taken a harmless virus called AAV, put into that virus a genetic cargo in the form of one of the proteins found in your myelen which is normally the target of this immune attack, a protein called MOG— Chris Smith, The Naked Scientist
They inject this into mice with the rodent equivalent of multiple sclerosis and it goes to the liver, the liver cells then make a lot of this MOG protein, and reeducate the immune system.— Chris Smith, The Naked Scientist
Click on the link below to listen to the full audio.....
This article first appeared on 702 : Naked scientist: Gene immunotherapy could reverse multiple sclerosis