Het JAK-verhaal wordt nog interessanter , lees de laatste allinea 2 keer.
Investigational Drugs for Rheumatoid Arthritis May Treat MS
by George Ochoa
A class of drugs in late-stage development for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) also may be useful in the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS), researchers have found.
The study, by investigators at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, focused on suppressors of cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS3), a protein found in low concentrations among MS patients in relapse. In mice engineered to have low SOCS3 and high STAT3 levels, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (the murine equivalent of MS) rapidly developed. Restored SOCS3 signaling lowered STAT3 levels and reversed the disease, according to the researchers, who reported their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (doi:10.1073/pnas.1117218109; March 12, 2012. [Epub ahead of print]).
STATs are part of the JAK-STAT pathway targeted by a new class of JAK inhibitors, the first of which may finish clinical trials for RA and seek approval this year. These agents may have value in treating MS, as the authors suggested in their paper: “Understanding the role of STAT3/SOCS3 in neuroinflammation will lead to development of rational therapeutics for MS patients, including JAK/STAT inhibitors currently in clinical trials.”
“We already are working to see whether JAK-STAT inhibitors reverse MS-like disease in mice,” Hongwei Qin, PhD, associate professor of cell, developmental and integrative biology, and first author, said in a statement. “Our wish is to contribute to the design of a new class of drugs against autoimmune diseases and other diseases, given that inflammation is a hallmark of many cancers, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as MS.”