Drug Discovery of “Therapeutics for Immune Diseases” by Exploring Immune Regulatory Mechanism
We have explored the important roles of regulatory T cells which negatively control immunological responses and discovered the technology to modulate the activity of these cells in vivo, which will be applicable to the drugs for the treatment of intractable immunological diseases.
Drug Discovery of "Therapeutics for Immune Diseases" by Exploring Immune Regulatory Mechanism
A population of T cells negatively regulating the immunity has been recently clarified. They are the “regulatory T cells (Tregs)” double positive for CD 4 and CD 25 molecules and can suppress excessively activated immune responses. Tregs are also considered to play an important role in autoimmune and allergy diseases and the graft rejection in organ transplantation. Professor Shiku and his colleagues of Mie University found that some antigen proteins, called SEREX antigens, could give great effect on the function of the Tregs. This finding suggests that the activity/function of Tregs can be controlled artificially by these antigens, proposing a new approach to treat various immune diseases. In addition, a different type of Tregs, that are positive for CD8 and CD122 molecules were also recently discovered by Associate Professor Haruhiko Suzuki of Nagoya University. ImmunoFrontier is promoting basic research on Tregs to create biological medicines effective to treat diseases caused by abnormal enhancement of immunity by controlling immune regulatory mechanism.
