Scientists have successfully tried a powerful synthetic compound that prevents type 1 diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes is a consequence of autoimmune destruction of beta cell producers in the pancreas.Although the usual treatments for the disease aim to replace lost insulin, the potential therapeutic via investigated by the biologist Laura Solt team, of the Scripps of Research Institute (Jupiter Campus, Florida), in the United States, focuses onThe possibility of preventing the initial devastation caused by the immune system, stopping the disease even before it begins, when there are already clear signs that the individual is on its way to developing such ailment.
In the tests, Solt and its collaborators rehearsed an experimental compound known as SR1001 in non -obese diabetic animal models.The compound acts on a couple of receptors that perform essential roles in the development of a specific population (TH17) of immune cells associated with the disease.
Since TH17 cells have been related to a series of autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, the Solt team thought that inhibiting them in cases of type 1 diabetes possibly preventing the progress of the disease.This happened.
The researchers found that SR1001 eliminated the incidence of diabetes and minimized insulitis, which is the inflammation corresponding to insulin producing cells, and its destructive, in treated animals.
The compound suppressed the immune response, including the production of TH17 cells, while maintaining normal insulin levels;It also increased the frequency of Foxp3 expression in T cells, which controls the development and function of a type of immune cells called regulatory T cells.
The studio animals never developed a high level of sugar that is indicator of diabetes, and the damage suffered by beta cells was drastically reduced, compared to animals that had not been treated with the compound.
The results of the experiments provide firm indications that TH17 cells have a pathological role in the development of type 1 diabetes, and that the use of compounds such as the proven could have an important potential as preventive therapy for it.
