Use Of “Tattoo Gun” Device Found To Significantly Reduce Multiple Sclerosis Severity In Mice
By Sidra Lackey
According to Multiple Sclerosis News Today, “multiple tiny injections of myelin-related small proteins alongside suppressors of the activity of dendritic cells, done using a device akin to a tattoo gun, powerfully reduced the severity of multiple sclerosis (MS) in a mouse model of the disease.” New findings announced by Therapeutic Solutions International (TSOI), called the results of the “tattoo gun style” approach “completely unexpected” in a company press release.
TSOI said it has filed patents related to these findings, noting the approach worked better than “conventional means of administration” for delivering dendritic cells as a means of easing MS symptoms. “Through our multiple collaborations [in clinical trials] we discover multiple unexpected findings on a regular basis,” said Timothy Dixon, president and CEO of TSOI, in Multiple Sclerosis News Today.
Previously other groups, “have used tattoo gun-based mechanisms to stimulate immune responses based on the theoretical advantage that a high number of microinjections results in a greater number of antigen presenting cells received to target immunogens,” TSOI further explains in their press release via Business Wire. “Utilizing a “tattoo gun” approach evokes a substantial degree of inflammation, which is classically believed to stimulate immunity. Surprisingly we found that in the presence of inhibitors of dendritic cell maturation factors that this approach led to potent generation of “suppressive” immune cells,” said David Barnett, Consultant to TSOI in: “Therapeutic Solutions International Announces Antigen Specific Blockade of Pathological Immune Response in Multiple Sclerosis Model Using “Tattoo Gun” Immunization.”
How exactly does this “tattoo gun” approach aid in easing disease severity? Multiple Sclerosis News Today details the process: Dendritic cells are a type of immune cell whose job is to move throughout the body, collecting bits and pieces of molecular debris and putting it on display for the rest of the immune system. This process is critical for the immune system to detect infectious viruses and bacteria, but it also can play a role in the development of autoimmune diseases like MS, where an inflammatory attack causes damage to the myelin sheath. That fatty coating around nerve fibers helps them send electric signals, and damage to it, called demyelination, is a key factor in MS. One strategy for inducing MS-like disease in mice is to inject myelin-related proteins that can be taken up by dendritic cells and presented to the immune system to trigger a myelin-damaging immune attack.
“Prior research has shown that a more potent reaction can be induced when multiple small injections are performed, using a process that’s similar to how a tattoo gun draws images on skin with multiple small injections of ink. Here, researchers used the approach to simultaneously inject small fragments of the myelin basic protein, a component of the myelin sheath, alongside signaling molecules that inhibit the activation and maturation of dendritic cells. This led to potent suppression of disease symptoms,” according to TSOI in “Use of ‘Tattoo Gun’ Device Found to Greatly Reduce MS Severity in Mice.”
“The modulation of dendritic cells in these experiments is somewhat similar to biological changes that happen during pregnancy,” explained James Veltmeyer, MD, chief medical officer of TSOI. While the immune system normally is primed to attack anything that is not the body’s own tissue, during pregnancy, the immune system’s activity shifts so that it won’t attack the developing fetus. “The quest to replicate the biological condition of pregnancy in which immunologically distinct tissues are not rejected by the host has been the Holy Grail of immunologists for the past century. It would be extremely ironic if something as simple as a tattoo gun was the answer,” he told Multiple Sclerosis News Today.