In autoimmunity, the mechanisms that guarantee that our defense system does not attack our own body - tolerance to oneself - does not work properly. Multiple sclerosis, which affects one in every 1,000 people in Spain, is a serious autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the myelin sheath of some types of neurons, causing progressive neurological disability.
The researchers have recently published in the journal Cell Reports the mechanism by which vitamin D activates the tolerance program of dendritic cells.
Dendritic cells are a type of immune cells present in the blood and tissues, capable of detecting potential threats and displaying them to lymphocytes in the lymph nodes. Once there, they decide whether the system is going to tolerate that threat or attack it.
It is known that when dendritic cells are treated with vitamin D they develop tolerogenic characteristics, so treatment with tolerant dendritic cells in multiple sclerosis patients could slow the progression of the disease. A growing number of experiments in animal models support this hypothesis and, as a matter of fact, the Neuroimmunology group is carrying out an international clinical trial to check it in patients with multiple sclerosis. This trial is part of the European-funded project ReSToRe (https://www.h2020restore.eu/).
However, the fact that the mechanism underlying the appearance of this tolerance profile was unknown prevented further insight on this therapeutic approach. The article published in Cell Reports, whose main authors conclude that the binding of the vitamin D receptor with the STAT3 protein results in the activation of TET2, a DNA demethylating agent - a type of epigenetic mark - that, in dendritic cells, promotes the activation of tolerance genes.
Thus, the researchers manage to demonstrate, for the first time, that the relationship between vitamin D and the generation of the tolerance profile of dendritic cells is due to the modification of epigenetic marks by TET2, through the IL-6- JAK-STAT3, very well-known clinical target.
With this new information, a door opens to the use of existing drugs that interfere with the STAT3 pathway and optimize the production of tolerogenic dendritic cells, capable of stopping the progression of multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases. This would be a new example of a promising cellular therapy, such as the CAR-T developed against cancer.
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(21)01753-8
http://sciencemission.com/site/index.php?page=news&type=view&id=publications%2Fvitamin-d-receptor&filter=22
Vitamin D epigenetically modulates the tolerance of the immune system
- 1,264 views
- Added
Latest News
A trial HIV vaccine trigger…
By newseditor
Posted 19 May
AI to predict DNA methylati…
By newseditor
Posted 19 May
Hyperactive platelets from…
By newseditor
Posted 19 May
Chromatin and RNA interacti…
By newseditor
Posted 18 May
Why patients with ARID1A mu…
By newseditor
Posted 18 May
Other Top Stories
A long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) regulating repair or regeneration of…
Read more
An innovative system to characterize regulatory DNA sequences respo…
Read more
How mitochondria gets the proteins?
Read more
Key bacterial transcription and translation regulators identified!
Read more
How the sleeping ribosomes awaken?
Read more
Protocols
Breast cancer-on-chip for p…
By newseditor
Posted 16 May
Methods for making and obse…
By newseditor
Posted 15 May
Mime-seq 2.0: a method to s…
By newseditor
Posted 13 May
Improved detection of DNA r…
By newseditor
Posted 09 May
Single-cell adhesive profil…
By newseditor
Posted 07 May
Publications
Vaccine induction of hetero…
By newseditor
Posted 19 May
Brain border-associated mac…
By newseditor
Posted 19 May
Inhibition of fatty acid up…
By newseditor
Posted 19 May
A microglial activation cas…
By newseditor
Posted 19 May
An age-progressive platelet…
By newseditor
Posted 19 May
Presentations
Hydrogels in Drug Delivery
By newseditor
Posted 12 Apr
Lipids
By newseditor
Posted 31 Dec
Cell biology of carbohydrat…
By newseditor
Posted 29 Nov
RNA interference (RNAi)
By newseditor
Posted 23 Oct
RNA structure and functions
By newseditor
Posted 19 Oct
Posters
A chemical biology/modular…
By newseditor
Posted 22 Aug
Single-molecule covalent ma…
By newseditor
Posted 04 Jul
ASCO-2020-HEALTH SERVICES R…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar
ASCO-2020-HEAD AND NECK CANCER
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar
ASCO-2020-GENITOURINARY CAN…
By newseditor
Posted 23 Mar