Discovery: a constituent element of "the hormone of happiness" activates immune cells

Clinical use against autoimmune diseases, allergies and cancer

"autoimmune diseases and allergies are among the most common emerging diseases in the world and urgently needed treatments are needed. Here our discovery to be extremely useful. If you are BH4 inhibit, we can inhibit the constant attack mode of these self-aggressive T cells, so that they do not destroy healthy tissue and do not cause chronic inflammation ", said Shane Cronin, Postdoc at IMBA and first author of the current publication in nature,

Together with

Clifford Woolf from the Boston Children's Hospital to Harvard and Kai Johnsson. Max Planck Institute of Medical Research, Heidelberg, researchers have developed a new drug called QM385, the BH4 inhibits, and the immune cells with excessive taming "tame". The first clinical trials are in sight.

BH4 also for anticancer treatments?

BH4 At the same time, it is also an important candidate for future cancer immunotherapies, as activated T cells detect and fight cancer cells. The researchers found in mice that BH4 T cells help target the tumor. It has also been shown that the emergence of BH4 can be blocked by kynurenine, a molecule that immune system can extinguish in tumors. The gift of BH4 let the T cells grow again.

Valuable knowledge about relationships

"Knowledge of new relationships in biology and emerging diseases is particularly valuable because applications can be very versatile." Who would have thought our immune system controlled by a known molecule of neurobiology and possibly new applications autoimmune diseases, Asthma could even lead to cancer and immunodeficiency! ", Said Shane Cronin,
"If we manage to find interconnections of different biological systems in the body, as in this case the nervous system and the immune systemyou can sometimes incredible discoveries make ". In the past, it's about the team around Josef Penninger Using the example of the RANKL signaling pathway, it was possible to link bone metabolism to the hormonal system. Denosumab, a resulting drug, is used during therapy, from bone loss to bad cancer pill, currently being treated.

Austria is tested.