New Potential Drug Target for Pneumonia

Interleukin-26, the inflammatory mediator has an important role in pneumonia and contribute to the killing of bacteria, said Karolinska Institutet researchers. The study is published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Immunology - Microbial Immunology. To facilitate the development of more effective therapies, researchers at Karolinska Institutet are trying to characterise the immunological mechanisms involved in pneumonia.

The new study demonstrates that an inflammatory mediator called interleukin-26 (IL-26) is critically involved in bacterial pneumonia in humans. During the last decade, IL-26 has emerged as an important player in the so-called innate immune response, our first line of defence against pathogens. It is abundant in the airways of healthy humans, and bacterial exposure stimulates an increased release of IL-26 by lung cells and white blood cells.

Studying human lung tissue and airway samples from patients with bacterial pneumonia, the researchers were able to show that IL-26 exerts complex modulatory effects on the immune system and that the protein directly kills bacteria known to cause pneumonia.

“Antibiotics are not sufficient to treat pneumonia and antibiotic resistance is an increasing problem, highlighting the need for biological treatments of this global killer disease. Our findings position IL-26 as a new potential target for biological treatment and emphasise that its role in pneumonia deserves to be further evaluated”, says lead author Karlhans Che, a researcher at the Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet.

The research was financed by the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, The Swedish Research Council, Region Stockholm (ALF funding), and The Swedish Society for Medical Research. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Source-Eurekalert