Vaccine ingredients could trigger autoimmune disease
Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 4:15 pm
Vaccine ingredients could trigger autoimmune disease
http://news.bmn.com/news/story?day=030807&story=1
Vaccine ingredients could trigger autoimmune disease
6 August 2003 15:00 GMT
by Helen Dell
Mineral oils that are components of some vaccines induce the production of
pathogenic autoantibodies and an inflammatory immune response when injected
into mice, report US researchers. They suggest that these oils could be
inducing autoimmunity in susceptible people.
The oils are used as adjuvants in vaccines - substances that enhance the
immunogenicity of an antigen. It has been known for some time that some
mineral oils can induce autoimmunity in the form of arthritis, indeed they
are injected into mice to produce animal models for arthritis.
Now, Minoru Satoh, research associate professor at the Division of
Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology at the University of Florida, and
colleagues have examined at the oils' effect in another autoimmune disease
- systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
SLE is a systemic autoimmune disease characterized by fever, weakness,
arthritis, skin rashes, pleurisy and kidney dysfunction. Individuals
produce autoantibodies to a wide array of tissue antigens, including DNA,
histones, platelets, leucocytes, and many others.
Satoh's team injected mice with the most common oil adjuvants used in human
and veterinary vaccines, incomplete Freund's adjuvant (IFA) and squalene,
and tested to see whether SLE-specific antibodies were produced.
They found that up to a quarter of the mice produced autoantibodies that
are SLE-specific. "The induction of autoantibodies was highly selective,"
they note. The ability of the oils to produce autoantibodies appears to
correlate with the production of the inflammatory mediator molecules IL-12,
IL-6 and TNF-alpha.
"I think this is a very significant finding because there is a possibility
that vaccination in animal or human can induce lupus autoantibodies in
susceptible individuals," said Satoh.
His team are now testing the effects of medicinal mineral oil and other
adjuvant components. "Hopefully, we can find some safe [mineral oil] that
can be used as adjuvant but doesn't induce lupus autoantibodies," he said.
The researchers are also beginning to look for genetic factors that might
influence susceptibility to SLE autoantibody production. They have tested
25 common laboratory strains of mice, each of which has a slightly
different, well-defined genotype. However, mice from all the strains
produced the SLE autoantibodies after injection with mineral oils, making
it difficult to separate out the genes that might underlie susceptibility.
Thomas Aune, Associate Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University in
Nashville, Tennessee, has been looking at gene expression patterns in
people with autoimmune disease to see how they differ from patterns in
people without disease. He is cautious about the new results. Environmental
insults that are proposed to cause autoimmunity have waxed and waned in
popularity over the years, he says, but none have really stood the test of
time.
http://news.bmn.com/news/story?day=030807&story=1
Vaccine ingredients could trigger autoimmune disease
6 August 2003 15:00 GMT
by Helen Dell
Mineral oils that are components of some vaccines induce the production of
pathogenic autoantibodies and an inflammatory immune response when injected
into mice, report US researchers. They suggest that these oils could be
inducing autoimmunity in susceptible people.
The oils are used as adjuvants in vaccines - substances that enhance the
immunogenicity of an antigen. It has been known for some time that some
mineral oils can induce autoimmunity in the form of arthritis, indeed they
are injected into mice to produce animal models for arthritis.
Now, Minoru Satoh, research associate professor at the Division of
Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology at the University of Florida, and
colleagues have examined at the oils' effect in another autoimmune disease
- systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
SLE is a systemic autoimmune disease characterized by fever, weakness,
arthritis, skin rashes, pleurisy and kidney dysfunction. Individuals
produce autoantibodies to a wide array of tissue antigens, including DNA,
histones, platelets, leucocytes, and many others.
Satoh's team injected mice with the most common oil adjuvants used in human
and veterinary vaccines, incomplete Freund's adjuvant (IFA) and squalene,
and tested to see whether SLE-specific antibodies were produced.
They found that up to a quarter of the mice produced autoantibodies that
are SLE-specific. "The induction of autoantibodies was highly selective,"
they note. The ability of the oils to produce autoantibodies appears to
correlate with the production of the inflammatory mediator molecules IL-12,
IL-6 and TNF-alpha.
"I think this is a very significant finding because there is a possibility
that vaccination in animal or human can induce lupus autoantibodies in
susceptible individuals," said Satoh.
His team are now testing the effects of medicinal mineral oil and other
adjuvant components. "Hopefully, we can find some safe [mineral oil] that
can be used as adjuvant but doesn't induce lupus autoantibodies," he said.
The researchers are also beginning to look for genetic factors that might
influence susceptibility to SLE autoantibody production. They have tested
25 common laboratory strains of mice, each of which has a slightly
different, well-defined genotype. However, mice from all the strains
produced the SLE autoantibodies after injection with mineral oils, making
it difficult to separate out the genes that might underlie susceptibility.
Thomas Aune, Associate Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University in
Nashville, Tennessee, has been looking at gene expression patterns in
people with autoimmune disease to see how they differ from patterns in
people without disease. He is cautious about the new results. Environmental
insults that are proposed to cause autoimmunity have waxed and waned in
popularity over the years, he says, but none have really stood the test of
time.