"Inverse vaccines" could be the beginning of the end for autoimmune disorders
skralyx blogs about science and medical breakthrough on Daily Kos. He is not an immunologist, but his interest and intelligence and ability to break through the wall of science speak helps a lot of people ... including me. Sometimes, he gets awfully excited and over-dramatic but in this case I will let him. I know very few people who DON'T have some sort of autoimmune disease(s), including the array of familial ones in my own family... so this brings a ray of hope being it has been successful in mice and monkeys. I will be dead before this happens, but hopefully this will be a boon to the future for so many people. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/15/2193137/--Inverse-vaccines-could-be-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-autoimmune-disorders#comment_87027487
Long COVID is presently presumed to be an autoimmune response long known to affect many people after infections... so this work is even more important than before COVID. 83% of patients with Long COVID develop latent autoimmunity and 62% present with polyautoimmunity. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10061411/
FYI: Like so many published Nature articles, this one states ANONYMOUS peer reviewers and the full article costs $29.99: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-023-01086-2#Sec30
Autoimmune diseases can predispose people to long COVID
Autoimmunity is a hallmark of post-COVID syndrome https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35296346/
Long COVID or Post-COVID Conditions https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/index.html
In other COVID news, researchers found that autoimmune diseases can predispose people to long COVID: A Clue Into Long COVID from Patients with Rheumatic Diseases. Infection with a common cold virus may prime some people to develop the syndrome. https://hms.harvard.edu/news/clue-long-covid-patients-rheumatic-diseases
Increase interferons with heat. Interferons are important for the innate immune system to react quickly… and COVID seems to shut down in some. Discusses hot baths and hydrotherapy. Try not to suppress fever except at night when it can become dangerous (Not applicable to fever in infants and young children). https://youtu.be/6sdvw_0R240
Type I interferon autoantibodies are associated with systemic immune alterations in patients with COVID-19. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34429372/
Editorial: Autoantibodies to Components of the Immune System, Including Type 1 Interferons, and the Risk of Severe COVID-19. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34538868/
Associations between type I interferon and antiphospholipid antibody status differ between ancestral backgrounds. (In Lupus) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29387437/
Studies: About 1 in 10 people had antibodies against interferons, just like the APS1 patients. None of these COVID patients, however, had any known autoimmune diseases. In laboratory experiments, Casanova’s team showed that these antibodies block the interferon response in cells exposed to SARS-CoV-2, thus preventing the cells from resisting the virus and controlling its spread. The team had found no such antibodies in people with mild or asymptomatic COVID-19. They appeared to be a feature – a cause, likely – of some of the worst outcomes. https://magazine.ucsf.edu/your-immune-system-could-turn-covid-19-deadly
Tamping down the hype:
“The method they use is promising and potentially can induce better tolerance,” says neurologist and neuroimmunologist A.M. Rostami of Thomas Jefferson University. But he notes that one reason previous attempts to spark tolerance failed is that researchers don’t know which self-antigens are being attacked. The inverse vaccine strategy doesn’t overcome that problem, he says. “Is this approach applicable to human disease in which we don’t know the antigen? We don’t know.”
Immunologist Jane Buckner of the Benaroya Research Institute shares his mixed response to the new approach. She calls it “a good first step,” but adds that the mechanisms that produce tolerance remain poorly understood. https://www.science.org/content/article/inverse-vaccine-could-help-tame-autoimmune-diseases
AKALib in comments provides links:
Some links to prior research and some background info on inverse vaccines -
The inverse of immunity — www.nature.com/...
Inverse vaccination, the opposite of Jenner’s concept, for therapy of autoimmunity — onlinelibrary.wiley.com/...
Reverse vaccination technique in mice suggests new way to teach the immune system not to attack lifesaving treatments — theconversation.com/…
Type 1 Diabetes Vaccine One Step Closer — pro.endocrineweb.com/…
'Reverse Vaccine' Targets the Source of Type 1 Diabetes — www.healthline.com/…