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"For other autoimmune diseases, researchers already know that Smad7 offers a promising therapeutic target; our results suggest that the same is true for multiple sclerosis," says Kleiter.
The gut has long been suspected of playing a role in autoimmune disease. Now a research team from the Faculty of Medicine at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany has identified a protein in the intestine that could be involved in the development of multiple sclerosis.
The researchers used an animal model to show that the Smad7 protein mobilizes immune cells in the intestines that, in turn, trigger inflammation in the central nervous system. Analysis of intestinal tissue samples taken from patients with multiple sclerosis confirmed the results, which have just been published in the journal 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences' (PNAS).
e incompletely understands which factors in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) act as triggers for the immune system to attack the brain and spinal cord. Researchers from the Department of Neurology and the Center for Neuroimmunology at St. Josef Hospital, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, with biologist Steffen Haupeltshofer and neurologists Professor Simon Faissner and Professor Ingo Kleiter, formerly at the hospital, worked on this objective. University of Bochum, currently at Marianne-Strau-Klinik in Berg.
"For other autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's disease and other inflammatory bowel diseases, researchers already know that Smad7 offers a promising therapeutic target; our results suggest that the same is true for multiple sclerosis," said Kleiter.
