Today, the new vaccine technology mRNA is making waves, as COVID-19 recordings based on it yield efficacy unmatched by other platforms. One of the successful shots, Comirnaty (BNT162b2), has been developed with BioNTech technology and is being rolled out in the US and EU.
Now BioNTech’s CEO, Ugur Sahin, MD, Ph.D., has led new research showing that an mRNA vaccine may also work in multiple sclerosis (MS).
In several mouse models of MS, Sahin’s team showed that an mRNA vaccine encoding a disease-related autoantigen successfully alleviated MS symptoms in sick animals and prevented disease progression in rodents with early signs of MS. The results are published in Science.
MS occurs when the immune system accidentally attacks the protective myelin sheath that covers nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Existing treatments work by systemically suppressing the immune system. That can keep MS under control, but it also makes patients vulnerable to infections.
Sahin, along with colleagues from BioNTech and scientists from Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, hypothesized that an mRNA vaccine could target to help the immune system tolerate specific MS-related proteins without compromising normal immune function.
The team came up with an mRNA candidate that encodes the genetic information for self-antigens that cause MS in fatty substances. A similar lipid nanoparticle is used in the United States to protect the COVID-19 mRNA material until it reaches target cells, where it produces the antigen protein.
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In mice with autoimmune encephalomyelitis, a model for MS in humans, the team found that the vaccine was processed by lymphoid antigen-presenting cells without eliciting a systemic inflammatory immune response, even when administered at very high antigen concentrations. It did not affect the animals’ ability to elicit a protective immune response.
The vaccine blocked all clinical symptoms of MS in mice, while control animals showed the typical symptoms of the disease. In mice started on the mRNA vaccine when minor signs of disease such as tail paralysis were noted, the treatment prevented further disease progression and restored motor functions, the team reported.
In treated mice, the researchers saw lower levels of infiltrating and antigen-specific CD4 + T cells in the brain and spinal cord, and the T cells in the spleen showed low expression of certain markers crucial for the immune cells to be able to intrusion. the central nervous system.
In addition, the treatment resulted in the expansion of regulatory T cells or Treg cells. This is important because MS is a complex disease where the specific self-antigens can differ from patient to patient. But Treg cells offer a more common “bystander tolerance,” which suppresses T cells against other antigens in the inflamed tissue, the researchers explained in the article.
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The mRNA technology has been hailed as a revolution in the vaccine space. BioNTech’s Pfizer partner Comirnaty demonstrated 95% efficacy in preventing COVID-19 in its phase 3 study, leading to one industry observer predicting that the success will “open the floodgates” of mRNA application, especially in infectious diseases .
Sahin originally founded BioNTech to translate the mRNA idea into cancer immunotherapy, but the company rose to the challenge of COVID-19 in the midst of the pandemic. Now Sahin and colleagues believe their research shows that mRNA vaccines also show promise in treating MS.
As COVID-19 has shown, mRNA vaccines can be designed quickly and mRNA can encode almost any autoantigen. “Thus, it is possible to tailor treatment to the disease-causing antigens of individual patients, similar to those successfully performed in the setting of personalized cancer vaccines,” the researchers wrote in the study. The combination of mRNAs could allow the control of even more complex autoimmune diseases, they suggested.