Researchers identify key protein that can reduce severity of disease equivalent to MS in mice

November 12, 2014

In multiple sclerosis, the immune system goes rogue, improperly attacking the body’s own central nervous system. Mobility problems and cognitive impairments may arise as the nerve cells become damaged.

In a new study, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and co-investigators have identified a key protein that is able to reduce the severity of a disease equivalent to MS in mice. This molecule, Del-1, is the same regulatory protein that has been found to prevent inflammation and bone loss in a mouse model of gum disease.

“We see that two completely different disease entities share a common pathogenic mechanism,” said George Hajishengallis, a professor of microbiology in Penn’s School of Dental Medicine and an author on the study. “And in this case that means that they can even share therapeutic targets, namely Del-1.”

Because Del-1 has been found to be associated with susceptibility to not only multiple sclerosis, but also Alzheimer’s, it’s possible that a properly functioning version of this protein might help guard again that disease’s effects as well.

Penn contributors to the study included Hajishengallis, Penn Dental Medicine postdoctoral researcher Kavita Hosur and Khalil Bdeir, a research associate professor at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. They collaborated with senior author Triantafyllos Chavakis of Germany’s Technical University Dresden and researchers from South Korea’s University of Ulsan College of Medicine and other institutions. The work appears online in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

In earlier studies, Hajishengallis, Chavakis and colleagues found that Del-1 acts as a gatekeeper that thwarts the movement and accumulation of immune cells like neutrophils, reducing inflammation. While neutrophils are needed to effectively respond to infection or injury, when too many of them accumulate in a tissue, the resulting inflammation can itself be damaging.

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