Nanovaccine Suppresses Autoimmune Response in Diabetic Mouse Model

Nanoparticles coated with specific immune markers have been used to prevent and cure diabetes in a mouse model of the disease.

Investigators at the University of Calgary (Alberta, Canada) created a novel class of nanoparticles coated with a complex of diabetes-related peptide antigens bound to major histocompatibility complexes (pMHC-NP). This nanoparticle vaccine was designed to stimulate a specific immune response that would inhibit autoimmune T cells that in diabetes attack and destroy insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. The stimulation was specific to the extent that only these T cells were affected while the integrity of the remainder of the immune response system was not.

Results published in the April 8, 2010, online edition of the journal Immunity revealed that treatment of NOD mice with the nanoparticles suppressed the recruitment of antibeta T cells, prevented the disease in prediabetic mice, and restored normal blood sugar levels in diabetic animals.

"Essentially there is an internal tug-of-war between aggressive T cells that want to cause the disease and weaker T cells that want to stop it from occurring," said senior author Dr. Pere Santamaria, professor of microbiology and infectious diseases at the University of Calgary. "If the paradigm on which this nanovaccine is based holds true in other chronic autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and others, nanovaccines might find general applicability in autoimmunity.”

The nanoparticle vaccine technology used in this study has been licensed by Parvus Therapeutics, Inc. (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) a biotechnology transfer and commercialization company belonging to the University of Calgary.

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University of Calgary
Parvus Therapeutics, Inc.