It's all very well to talk about GMO corn so we can get all frothy online about GMO breakfast cereal and isn't that exciting but it gets a whole lot more interesting when scientists will modify human blood and for eminently good reasons in terms of improved autoimmune response for exceptionally ill people. (SD: Cargo-carrying red blood cells alleviate autoimmune diseases in mice)
Ever since the Eighties, we have heard far more about autoimmune diseases than we ever wanted to know, particularly with regard to AIDS / HIV. Unknown if there is any specific mitigation of that particular malady but the concept applies in general.
Note: picture of surprising relevance to the actual content.
Design of red blood cell capable of carrying antigenic peptides—pieces of protein from cells that trigger the inappropriate immune responses behind autoimmune diseases. When these pieces of protein are released from the red blood cells, they help retrain the immune system to ignore antigens that would otherwise cause an inappropriate immune response.
Credit: Courtesy of PNAS
Skeptic: so what?
Using red blood cells modified to carry disease-specific antigens, scientists in the laboratories of Hidde Ploegh (former Whitehead Member, currently Boston Children's Hospital) and Harvey Lodish (Whitehead Founding Member) have prevented and alleviated two autoimmune diseases -- multiple sclerosis (MS) and type 1 diabetes -- in early stage mouse models.
- SD
There's your so what. As I said, HIV is not mentioned but it's in the same category.
The study demonstrates red blood cells do much more than conveying oxygen to the body's cells.
Although antigenic peptides can be effective in stimulating the induction of tolerance, the mechanism responsible is not well understood at the cellular and molecular levels.. "Essentially what we're doing is hijacking the red blood cell clearance pathway, such that the foreign antigen masquerades as the red blood cells' own, such that these antigens are being tolerated in the process," says Pishesha, who is also the first author of the PNAS paper.
For Ploegh, the research could lead to future insights into how the immune system regulates itself and how that sometimes goes awry. As a cautionary note, he points out that red blood cells used in the experiment are not "immunologically inert."
- SD
In English that means more research is required but you knew that already when you saw the subjects in the experiments are mice. It won't be here tomorrow but there's novel science which may have bearing at a later time.
Biology Major: how can it be GMO blood when there are no chromosomes in blood cells?
Everything in the body came from a chromosome or a protein which came from one. It's not entirely clear from the paper how the red blood cells came to be 'tagged' as they were but it was not from some type of breeding program or specific genetic modification.
The current work, which is described online this week in the journal PNAS, uses cargo-laden red blood cells to intercede in autoimmune diseases. Novalia Pishesha, an MIT Biological Engineering graduate student in the Lodish and Ploegh labs, drew blood from a mouse, used sortagging to decorate the red blood cells with the antigens that trigger the harmful immune response, and transfused the altered red blood cells back into mouse models of type 1 diabetes and MS. The entire process can be completed in about an hour.
- SD
Biology Major: so why call it GMO?
Because this type of biological function goes to a similar depth in trying to manipulate systems which are not as yet fully understood.
Biology Major: they will kill us all in continuing their reckless experimentation!
We will die anyway if they don't and we may win if they continue. I say carry it forward, brainiacs. Let's see what you've got.
Ever since the Eighties, we have heard far more about autoimmune diseases than we ever wanted to know, particularly with regard to AIDS / HIV. Unknown if there is any specific mitigation of that particular malady but the concept applies in general.
Note: picture of surprising relevance to the actual content.
Design of red blood cell capable of carrying antigenic peptides—pieces of protein from cells that trigger the inappropriate immune responses behind autoimmune diseases. When these pieces of protein are released from the red blood cells, they help retrain the immune system to ignore antigens that would otherwise cause an inappropriate immune response.
Credit: Courtesy of PNAS
Skeptic: so what?
Using red blood cells modified to carry disease-specific antigens, scientists in the laboratories of Hidde Ploegh (former Whitehead Member, currently Boston Children's Hospital) and Harvey Lodish (Whitehead Founding Member) have prevented and alleviated two autoimmune diseases -- multiple sclerosis (MS) and type 1 diabetes -- in early stage mouse models.
- SD
There's your so what. As I said, HIV is not mentioned but it's in the same category.
The study demonstrates red blood cells do much more than conveying oxygen to the body's cells.
Although antigenic peptides can be effective in stimulating the induction of tolerance, the mechanism responsible is not well understood at the cellular and molecular levels.. "Essentially what we're doing is hijacking the red blood cell clearance pathway, such that the foreign antigen masquerades as the red blood cells' own, such that these antigens are being tolerated in the process," says Pishesha, who is also the first author of the PNAS paper.
For Ploegh, the research could lead to future insights into how the immune system regulates itself and how that sometimes goes awry. As a cautionary note, he points out that red blood cells used in the experiment are not "immunologically inert."
- SD
In English that means more research is required but you knew that already when you saw the subjects in the experiments are mice. It won't be here tomorrow but there's novel science which may have bearing at a later time.
Biology Major: how can it be GMO blood when there are no chromosomes in blood cells?
Everything in the body came from a chromosome or a protein which came from one. It's not entirely clear from the paper how the red blood cells came to be 'tagged' as they were but it was not from some type of breeding program or specific genetic modification.
The current work, which is described online this week in the journal PNAS, uses cargo-laden red blood cells to intercede in autoimmune diseases. Novalia Pishesha, an MIT Biological Engineering graduate student in the Lodish and Ploegh labs, drew blood from a mouse, used sortagging to decorate the red blood cells with the antigens that trigger the harmful immune response, and transfused the altered red blood cells back into mouse models of type 1 diabetes and MS. The entire process can be completed in about an hour.
- SD
Biology Major: so why call it GMO?
Because this type of biological function goes to a similar depth in trying to manipulate systems which are not as yet fully understood.
Biology Major: they will kill us all in continuing their reckless experimentation!
We will die anyway if they don't and we may win if they continue. I say carry it forward, brainiacs. Let's see what you've got.
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