Sat nav jamming could help tackle inflammatory diseases
A team of British scientists is aiming to tackle diseases such as asthma and clogged arteries by jamming sat nav-like signals that drive the body to damage itself.
A team of British scientists is aiming to tackle diseases such as asthma and clogged arteries by jamming "sat nav"-like signals that drive the body to damage itself.
James Pease of Imperial College London and colleagues are investigating how new "blocker" drugs might be used to treat inflammatory diseases including atherosclerosis and age-related macular degeneration.
They are working to understand how a specific protein called CCR3 functions, and how newly developed drugs can be used to jam its communications.
"The CCR3 protein has been likened to a "sat nav" device that sits on the surface of white blood cells called leukocytes," said Pease.
"The way leukocytes move around the body is controlled by proteins called chemokines, which are particularly generated during inflammation. Once chemokines have "recruited" leukocytes to tissues in the body, the leukocytes are instructed to carry out several functions including the destruction of invading micro-organisms like bacteria."
However, the flip side of this is that inadvertent or excessive production of chemokines is responsible for the tissue damage observed in diseases such as asthma.
The CCR3 protein detects the chemokine signal and instructs the cell to move in the direction of the signal.
Scientists already know it is possible to use prototype drugs to jam the CCR3 signal that directs leukocytes to the asthmatic lung.
Pease said the research has given his team a good idea of how CCR3 blocking works - and could aid the design of future therapies.
"One major problem faced by researchers is that the human CCR3 is significantly different from the CCR3 in rats or mice, so all possible CCR3 blockers have to be assessed on human cells, which has made progress much slower," he said.
"There is still much work to be done, and although CCR3-blocking drugs described to date have yet to prove successful in the clinic, we are excited by the potential for these drugs in the treatment of a variety of diseases, particularly asthma."
Dr Pease reported on progress at The British Pharmacological Society's Winter Meeting this week.