A team of Chinese researchers has developed a new treatment against asma based on CAR-T cells and has proven in a study carried out in mice that with a single injection of these cells previously modified to attack their own eosinophils – a type of white blood cell that is activated by certain infections and allergies – these animals experienced a remission of the signs and symptoms of this respiratory disease for at least a year.
This new way of treating asthma could improve symptoms and reduce the need for medications. This method is based on eliminating a type of immune cells called eosinophils, which play an important role in airway inflammation in people with asthma.
Currently, special antibodies that target a protein on eosinophils, called IL-5Rα, are used to kill these cells. This helps relieve the asthma symptoms and reduces the need for medications like glucocorticoids. Although this treatment is safe in the long term, it requires repeated doses and may lose effectiveness if the patient’s body develops resistance to the antibodies.
Although the authors have warned that it is necessary to verify the safety and effectiveness of this technique in clinical trials with human beings, they believe that it could be useful not only in the treatment of asthma, but also to combat other types of allergies. The results have just been published in the journal Nature Immunology.
An immunotherapy that could relieve asthma symptoms
José Gregorio Soto Campos, director of the Pulmonology and Allergy Clinical Management Unit at the Hospital of Jerez and professor at the University of Cádiz, considers that this is a high-quality study and explains how the research was carried out in statements to SMC Spain. “T lymphocytes are cells of the immune system that participate in the body’s defense against infections and that also act against cancer cells. To perform this treatment, T lymphocytes are obtained from the patient’s blood with a procedure called apheresis: these T lymphocytes are genetically modified in the laboratory so that they can bind to specific proteins (antigens) expressed on cancer cells and destroy them. selectively. These T lymphocytes, once modified and multiplied in the laboratory to obtain millions of lymphocytes that can fight the disease, are injected again intravenously into the patient. It is, therefore, a personalized treatment for each patient.”
“The chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy program offers a new cancer immunotherapy which involves the genetic modification of T lymphocytes to activate the immune system and recognize and destroy certain types of cancer. CAR T cell therapy is not the same as stem cell transplant or chemotherapy. CAR T cell therapy may be a treatment option for various types of hematologic tumors, as well as other cancers and medical conditions that are undergoing clinical studies. Its usefulness had not been studied in asthma, but this study opens new opportunities,” adds this specialist, who has not participated in the research.
“Data show that asthma, a common chronic disease, can achieve long-term remission with a single dose of long-lived CAR T cells”
“In the study they use IL-5 as a target domain to engineer long-lived chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells that can eradicate eosinophils. We call these cells functional, immortal-like IL-5 CAR T cells (5TIF). 5TIF cells were further modified to secrete an IL-4 mutein that blocks IL-4 and IL-13 signaling, termed 5TIF4 cells. In asthma models, a single infusion of 5TIF4 cells into fully immunocompetent mice, without any conditioning regimen, led to a sustained suppression of lung inflammation and relief of asthmatic symptoms. “These data show that asthma, a common chronic disease, can achieve long-term remission with a single dose of long-lived CAR T cells.”
“As for the limitationsalthough 5TIF4 cells represent engineered immune cells capable of paving the way and replacing biological therapy that requires repeated and lifelong administration, the truth is that these types of therapies have not been tested in chronic respiratory diseases and we do not know about its possible adverse effects on humans.”
Source: www.webconsultas.com