The new mRNA vaccination technology is making waves these days as COVID-19-based imaging delivers efficiencies that other platforms do not. One of the successful designs, Comirnaty (BNT162b2), was developed with BioNTech technology and is being rolled out in the US and EU.
Now BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin, MD, Ph.D., has led new research showing that mRNA vaccines may work in multiple sclerosis (MS).
In several mouse models of MS, Sahin’s team showed that disease-associated autoantigen-coding mRNA vaccine successfully reduced MS symptoms in sick animals and prevented disease progression in rodents. showing early signs of MS. The results were published in Science.
MS occurs when the immune system incorrectly attacks the immune myelin sheath that covers nerve cells in the brain and spine. Existing medications work by regularly suppressing the immune system. That can control MS, but it also leaves patients vulnerable to disease.
Sahin, along with colleagues at BioNTech and scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University, suggested that mRNA vaccines could work in a targeted fashion to help the immune system absorb specific MS-related proteins. without compromising normal immune function.
The team came up with an mRNA candidate that encoded genetic information coding for MS-induced autoimmune antigens in fatty substances. A similar lipid nanoparticle is used in Comirnaty to protect the COVID-19 mRNA substance until it reaches target cells, where it makes the antigen protein.
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In mice with autoimmune encephalomyelitis, a model for human MS, the team found that the vaccine was processed by lymphoid cells exhibiting antigen without stimulating a systemic immune response, even when delivered at congestion. very high antigen. It did not interfere with the animals’ ability to trigger an immune response.
Vaccination prevented all clinical signs of MS in mice, while control animals experienced normal symptoms of the disease. In mice who started the mRNA vaccine when small signs of disease such as tail paralysis were noticed, the treatment prevented further disease progression and restored motor functions, the team reported.
In treated mice, the researchers observed lower levels of infiltrating CD4 + T cells and specific antigen in the brain and spine, and the T cells in the spleen showed a low sensitivity of specific signals that are essential for the immune cells will be able to enter the central nervous system.
In addition, the treatment led to the expansion of regulatory T cells, or Treg cells. This is important because MS is a complex disease in which the specific autoimmune antigens can vary from one patient to the next. But Treg cells offer broader “bystander tolerance,” which inhibits T cells against other antigens in the inflamed tumor, the researchers explained in the paper.
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The mRNA technology is accepted as a revolution in the vaccine space. Comirnaty with PNTizer partner BioNTech showed 95% efficacy in inhibiting COVID-19 in its phase 3 trial, leading one industry watchdog to predict that success will “open the floods” of mRNA application specifically in infectious disease.
Sahin first founded BioNTech to translate the idea of mRNA into cancer immunotherapy, but the company rose to the challenge of COVID-19 among the pandemic. Now, Sahin and colleagues believe their research shows that mRNA vaccines also hold promise in the treatment of MS.
As COVID-19 has shown, mRNA vaccines can be rapidly formulated and mRNA can code for almost any autoantigen. “Therefore, it is possible to consider the treatment for disease-causing antigens in individual patients, similar to those successfully performed in the administration of personalized cancer vaccines,” the researchers wrote in the study. The combination of mRNAs may enable control of even more complex autoimmune diseases, they suggested.