Monday, March 16, 2015

Antibody targeting IL-23(p19 subunit) beats psoriasis

Psoriasis is a common skin inflammation of autoimmune nature. If there is any disease that benefited from the fundamental immunological research is Psoriasis.

Initially thought to be a purely skin disorder, now it is firmly established that immune system's attack on it own skin tissue plays a major role in driving clinical signs of psoriasis. Pioneering studies with α-p40 antibodies suggested that IL-12 might have been involved in psoriasis. However discovery of IL-23 (that consisted of p40 and p19 subunits) in 2001 opened up new era in our understanding of molecular mechanisms behind psoriasis pathology.

New study in Nature provided additional data to clearly establish that selective targeting of IL-23 drastically improves psoriasis's skin pathology.

The authors showed that three, monthly intravenous injections of humanized antibody targeting p19 subunit of IL-23 (Tildrakizumab) could drastically reduce psoriatic skin pathologies in absolute majority of patients that lasted for at least 1 year.


α-p19 antibody injections reduced hyper-keratinization and hyper-proliferation in psoratic skin lesions.


In summary, this study suggests that IL-23 system that includes IL-17 are intimately involved in psoriatic skin pathology and its targeting (maybe simultaneously with α-IL-17 ) could finally bring the needed relief to people suffering from this skin disorder.

 David Usharauli


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