By John Gever, Deputy Managing Editor, MedPage Today
Published: May 19, 2013
The mystery of why a drug for one autoimmune disease can cause another may have been solved. Also this week: a new oral nimodipine formulation aimed at reducing medication errors.
Mechanism Found for Alemtuzumab Side Effect
Researchers think they may have figured out why a drug that is highly effective against one autoimmune disease can sometimes trigger another.
The CD52-targeted biologic drug alemtuzumab (Lemtrada) is in late-stage development for multiple sclerosis, with long-term efficacy shown with just two annual courses of treatment. But, in a few patients, the agent appears to prompt an autoimmune attack on the thyroid or other organs. The mechanism has been unclear.
A new study from researchers in Australia and China, published in Nature Immunology, suggests a possible answer. They found that T cells expressing CD52 downregulated other T cells in vitro. Also, examination of samples from human patients with type 1 diabetes (the autoimmune form) showed low counts of these CD52+ cells as well as impaired function in the few that did exist.
In another set of experiments in diabetes-prone young mice, injecting the animals with lymphocyte populations lacking the CD52+ subset resulted in accelerated development of diabetes.
The researchers suggested that depletion of CD52 T cells — as occurs after alemtuzumab treatment — may unleash other T cells to attack host tissues, resulting in autoimmune disease.
Source: MedPage Today
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