Against diabetes and arthritis
Plant viruses have saved mice from incurable autoimmune diseases
Sergey Vasiliev, Naked Science
Not all viruses are dangerous to humans, and some even benefit. Phages attacking bacteria remain very promising for the treatment of infections resistant to antibiotics. Artificially modified viral particles can be used for "point", targeted drug delivery to affected cells and during gene therapy.
And recently, a team of Italian scientists has found a useful application for plant viruses. Unable to reproduce in animal cells, they are completely safe, but thanks to certain modifications they can become effective in the treatment of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or type I diabetes. Linda Avesani from the University of Verona and her co-authors write about this in an article published in the journal Science Advances (Zampieri et al., Prevention and treatment of autoimmune diseases with plant virus nanoparticles).
For their experiments, the scientists used the pea mosaic Virus (Cowpea Mosaic Virus, CPMV) and the fluffy tomato virus (Tomato Bushy Stunt Virus, TBSV). Their particles were modified so that they began to carry on the surface human proteins associated with the development of diabetes (protein p524 on CPMV) or arthritis (proteins pLip1 and pFADK2 on TBSV). To test various modification methods, CPMV particles were completely purified from the viral genome in advance, and TBSV was used whole, with its own RNA.
Such particles were injected into mice, model animals with the corresponding autoimmune disease. As might be expected, thanks to viral injections, the mice's immunity was able to adapt better to the disease – and its manifestations weakened. And when using TBSV viruses with pFADK2 proteins, the clinical manifestations of arthritis disappeared altogether. Scientists are confident that in the future modified plant viruses will be widely used by physicians – and continue preclinical testing of the new method.
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