Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a debilitating autoimmune disease affecting nervous system. Several auto-antigens have been traditionally suspected for MS pathology, mostly derived from neural tissues such myelin. However, more recently the list of relevant auto-antigens expanded to include such member as RAS guanyl releasing protein (RASGRP1–4) family. Similarly, a new paper in Science Translational Medicine presented evidence that yet another auto-antigen, GDP-l-fucose synthase, is a target antigen in a subset of MS patients.
The authors has used modified version of positional scanning epitope library to identify epitope derived from auto-antigen, GDP-L-fucose synthase, as a target epitope for CD4+ T cell clone, TCC21.1, derived from MS patients with DR15 haplotype. Peptides sequences matching GDP-l-fucose synthase was detected in brain tissue.
MS patients whose T cells displayed high response to peptides from GDP-L-fucose synthase in stimulation assay showed high responses to myelin proteins as well.
Curiously, almost all high responders carried DRB3*02:02 allele.
Finally, the authors speculated that sequence similarity between human and microbiota-derived evolutionary conserved GDP-L-fucose synthase could be a factor that initiates MS pathology in these patients.
In summary, this study has a lot of nice data that support idea that GDP-L-fucose synthase is a new auto-antigen that could be relevant in molecular diagnosis of MS pathology.
There are several questions about this study. GDP-L-fucose synthase expression is not restricted to brain tissue. So, it should be relevant to understand if other tissues were affected in those MS patients. Second, cross-reactivity per se is not sufficient to explain how and why autoimmune responses are being initiated. Microbiota expressing GDP-L-fucose synthase most likely reside in patients long before MS, maybe even since birth, and T cells are tolerant to them. So, what has to be changed, in a antigen-specific manner, to make T cells less tolerant to initiate specific autoimmune attack on nervous system and not a total autoimmunity targeting all available auto-antigens?
posted by David Usharauli
The authors has used modified version of positional scanning epitope library to identify epitope derived from auto-antigen, GDP-L-fucose synthase, as a target epitope for CD4+ T cell clone, TCC21.1, derived from MS patients with DR15 haplotype. Peptides sequences matching GDP-l-fucose synthase was detected in brain tissue.
MS patients whose T cells displayed high response to peptides from GDP-L-fucose synthase in stimulation assay showed high responses to myelin proteins as well.
Curiously, almost all high responders carried DRB3*02:02 allele.
Finally, the authors speculated that sequence similarity between human and microbiota-derived evolutionary conserved GDP-L-fucose synthase could be a factor that initiates MS pathology in these patients.
In summary, this study has a lot of nice data that support idea that GDP-L-fucose synthase is a new auto-antigen that could be relevant in molecular diagnosis of MS pathology.
There are several questions about this study. GDP-L-fucose synthase expression is not restricted to brain tissue. So, it should be relevant to understand if other tissues were affected in those MS patients. Second, cross-reactivity per se is not sufficient to explain how and why autoimmune responses are being initiated. Microbiota expressing GDP-L-fucose synthase most likely reside in patients long before MS, maybe even since birth, and T cells are tolerant to them. So, what has to be changed, in a antigen-specific manner, to make T cells less tolerant to initiate specific autoimmune attack on nervous system and not a total autoimmunity targeting all available auto-antigens?
posted by David Usharauli
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