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Immune system clues
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Understanding cold virus protein may help transplant patients
By Dennis O'Brien
Sun reporter
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Originally published January 19, 2007
Photos
We all know how our bodies react to a cold - runny nose, stuffed sinuses, watery eyes and so on. And
eventually, to our relief, these symptoms disappear.
How all this happens became clearer this week in a report by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University
looking for ways to help control the immune systems of organ transplant patients.
Their findings, published yesterday in the journal
Nature, show that a typical cold virus produces a
protein in your blood that eventually shuts down part of the immune system, drying up the runny nose and
sniffles that make life miserable.
Cold study
(Sun photo by Jed
Kirschbaum)
The protein, named carabin, was discovered in the early 1990s. But only now have scientists figured out how
Jan 17, 2007
it works.
"What we've found is it plays a general role of a brake, of sorts, on the immune system," said Jun O. Liu, a
professor of pharmacology and neuroscience at the Hopkins medical school.
In Depth
1918 influenza
Without such brakes, your immune system could continue producing cold symptoms or go into overdrive resulting in an autoimmune disease such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis or diabetes.
pandemic
"Anytime you activate the immune system, you run the risk of having it go out of control," said Thomas
If I die
Tedder, chairman of immunology at the Duke University Medical Center, who was not involved in the study.
Special series from The
"You need these regulatory pathways to prevent that."
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-hs.cold19jan19,0,3981579.story?coll=bal-health-headlines (1 of 4)1/25/2007 10:35:08 AM
Immune system clues - baltimoresun.com
Sun.
The work is aimed at increasing what researchers know about our immune systems - and ultimately making
life easier for organ transplant recipients, who often develop complications from drugs that suppress their
immune systems.
Health & Science
coverage
Experts say thousands of transplant patients are living longer each year but face side effects from the
immunosuppressant drugs that keep them alive.
Weekly section from The
Sun.
"Anything we can do to have the immune system control itself, the better off we are," said Dr. Matt Cooper, a
member of the organ transplant team at the University of Maryland Medical Center who was not involved in
the study.
The report shows that carabin acts the same way as immunosuppressant drugs now on the market - inhibiting
a pathway that activates the immune system, Cooper said.
Researchers have known for years that white blood cells play a key role in our immune systems, producing
proteins that attack infections and kill them off. The problem with transplants is that the immune system
recognizes the new tissues as foreign and attacks them.
"Your immune system is walking a tight rope between fighting off an infection and causing too many
problems," said Cooper, an associate professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
The first successful organ transplant was performed in Boston in 1954, when Ronald Herrick donated a
kidney to his twin brother, Richard, who was dying of kidney disease.
According to the National Kidney Foundation, Richard survived for eight years and the surgeon who
performed the transplant, Dr. Joseph Murray, won a Nobel Prize for medicine in 1990.
But organ transplants remained experimental until the 1980s and the advent of cyclosporine, an
immunosuppressant that helped patients cope with new organs by preventing their immune systems from
responding as if the organs were infections.
Each year, doctors transplant upwards of 25,000 kidneys, livers, hearts, lungs, livers and pancreases, experts
say.
"The impact of the immunosuppressant drugs were what made transplants possible," said Cooper, part of a
team that performed 330 organ transplants last year at the UM Medical Center.
Some transplant patients can be weaned off immunosuppressants, but most take them for the rest of their
lives. "You may hear about the exceptions, but for the most part, it means a life time of medications," Cooper
said.
But side effects include tremors, diabetes, kidney failure and weakened immune systems that can turn
common infections into deadly threats, experts say.
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News > health & science
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Immune system clues
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Understanding cold virus protein may help transplant patients
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By Dennis O'Brien
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Sun reporter
RSS feed
Originally published January 19, 2007
Photos
<<
Liu studies the mechanisms immunosuppressant drugs use to shut down the immune system. His
goal is finding immunosuppressants with fewer side effects.
Previous
"We're looking for better immunosuppressive drugs, but to be honest, that goal is probably a long, long way
down the road," he said.
For the Nature study, Liu and his team added carabin to
mouse and human white blood cells that had already
been manipulated to fight off infections. The study cost
just under $500,000 and is the result of about eight
years of work, Liu said.
(Sun photo by Jed
He found that adding carabin deactivated the blood
cells programmed to fight off viral infections, and the
more carabin he added, the less active the cells became.
In Depth
Cold study
Kirschbaum)
Jan 17, 2007
1918 influenza
Carabin levels usually reached maximum
concentrations in the lab and began shutting off the
immune system after about 12 hours, he said. In real
life it often takes longer to fight off cold symptoms
because of the tenacity of the virus and other factors, he
said.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-hs.cold19jan19,0,3981579.story?page=2&coll=bal-health-headlines (1 of 3)1/25/2007 10:36:00 AM
pandemic
If I die
Special series from The
Immune system clues - baltimoresun.com
Sun.
Liu has been working with carabin since the early
1990s and suspected that it played a key role in the
immune system response.
Health & Science
coverage
"What carabin does is, it takes time to build up and
allows the immune system to do it's job, then it turns
the system off, so to speak," he said.
Weekly section from The
Sun.
Carabin isn't our immune system's only shut-off valve,
experts say. But much about the immune system
remains a mystery, so identifying any shutoff valves
could lead to better medications, they say.
Stem cell research
Flu season
"We're still uncovering all the stones and seeing what's
underneath, and this was a basic stone to uncover,"
Tedder said. "It's a great basic science discovery."
Also see
Health & Science
> Weekly section
> Archive
dennis.
[email protected]
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