New antibodies treat autoimmune disease in mice

A team of Weizmann Institute scientists have made a breakthrough in treating autoimmune disease. In such diseases, including Crohn’s and rheumatoid arthritis, the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s tissues. But the scientists managed to trick the immune systems of mice into targeting one of the body’s players in autoimmune processes, an enzyme known as MMP9. Rather than attempting to design a synthetic molecule to directly attack MMPs, as has been tried in previous research, the researchers coaxed the immune system into targeting MMP-9 through immunization. Just as immunization with a killed virus induces the immune system to create antibodies that then attack live viruses, an MMP immunization successfully created antibodies that blocked the enzyme.