Multiple Sclerosis Breakthrough: Nanoparticle Halts Disease in Mice

Jack Osbourne was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis earlier this year after he lost 60 per cent of his vision in his right eye (Reuters)

A scientific breakthrough has arrested the development of multiple sclerosis in mice and has implications for a new treatment for the degenerative disease.

Researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois found a new nanoparticle that tricks and resets the immune systems of mice with MS.

MS is a neurological disease that affects around 100,000 people in the UK. It is mostly diagnosed in people who are aged between 20 and 40.

A substance called myelin protects nerve fibres in the central nervous system. When people have MS, their immune system, which would normally fight off infections, mistakes myelin for a foreign body and attacks it.

These attacks damage the myelin and strips it of nerve fibres. Over time, this nerve damage causes the accumulation of disability.

The new nanoparticle works by delivering an antigen that makes the immune system stop its attack on myelin and halt relapsing remitting MS in mice. Around 80 per cent of people with MS are diagnosed with the relapsing remitting form of the disease.

People who suffer from relapsing remitting MS have symptoms ranging from mild limb numbness to paralysis or blindness.

The biodegradable nanoparticle also has implications for the treatment of Type 1 diabetes, asthma and food allergies.

Current therapies for MS suppress the entire immune system, leaving patients vulnerable to infections and higher rates of cancer. The nanoparticle, however, was attached to myelin antigens and injected into the mice, allowing the immune system to reset itself to normal and stop attack on myelin.

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Multiple Sclerosis Breakthrough: Nanoparticle Halts Disease in Mice