Arthrosis vaccine
New vaccine relieves mice of osteoarthritis pain
A team of scientists from the UK, Switzerland and Latvia has developed a vaccine that has proved capable of relieving experimental mice from pain caused by osteoarthritis. To do this, the vaccine blocks a protein called nerve growth factor.
With osteoarthritis, the cartilage tissue in the joints is destroyed and the bones begin to come into contact with each other, which causes inflammation, pain and deformation of the joint. Signs of this disease are more or less noted in every second person over fifty years of age. More than 75% of patients with this diagnosis experience pain on a daily basis. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and opioids are usually used as painkillers, but their effectiveness is limited.
In the last decade, to relieve pain in osteoarthritis, doctors began to influence the nerve growth factor responsible for the development of the nervous system, the maintenance of neurons and the growth of their long processes. In adults, this protein is involved in the signaling pathway associated with the sensation of pain. During inflammation, nerve growth factor is released in high concentration by the so–called mast cells, it stimulates the growth of axons in nearby nociceptors (neurons - pain receptors), and this explains the increased pain sensitivity in the area of inflammation. A number of nerve growth factor blocking agents for pain relief in osteoarthritis are currently undergoing clinical trials.
Professor Tonya Vincent from the Institute of Rheumatology at Oxford University and her colleagues have found an effective method of delivering antibodies to nerve growth factor using a vaccine based on virus-like particles.
The researchers admit that there is still a serious safety test of such a method before using it to treat people, but they hope that it will reach clinical use. Moreover, the design of the vaccine allows you to control the level of antibodies and thus adapt the treatment according to the individual needs of the patient.
The results of the study are published in the journal Annals of Rheumatic Disease (von Loga et al. Active Immunisation Targeting Nerve Growth Factor Attenuates Chronic Pain Behaviour in Murine Osteoarthritis).
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