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Leprosy Drug Holds Promise for Autoimmune Diseases Also

by Tanya on February 02, 2009 at 10:35 AM Drug News

Researchers have found that a very old drug that has till date been used to treat leprosy may also be effective in treating several autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis.

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The old drug called clofazimine, made in the 1890s originally failed to treat tuberculosis but has worked well as an anti-leprosy medicine.

"We never expected that an old antibiotic would hit this target that has been implicated in multiple sclerosis, psoriasis and type 1 diabetes," said Johns Hopkins pharmacologist Jun O. Liu.�

"People have been working for years and spending tens of millions of dollars on developing a drug to inhibit a specific molecular target involved in these diseases, and here, we have a safe, known drug that hits that target," known as the Kv1.3 potassium channel,� Liu added.�

Johns Hopkins scientists discovered that clofazimine interferes with a molecular pathway important in orchestrating the human body�s immune response.�

"Until now, clofazimine's presumed target was not human cells, but bacteria. But we discovered the drug has a tremendous effect on human immune cells that are heavily involved in both the initiation and execution of an effective immune response," Liu said.�

Liu said that one of the key steps involved in turning on the immune response is the prolonged accumulation of calcium inside of immune cells.�

During the study, when the researchers stimulated an immune cell, setting the signalling event in motion, they noticed that lots of calcium flushed into the cell and lingered there.

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