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Thursday, 26 Sep, 2019
IL-11 is a therapeutic target in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
Neutralising proteins targeting diseased lung cells can prevent and reverse lung fibrosis in promising pre-clinical study.
SINGAPORE, 26 September 2019 – Scientists have discovered a means of preventing and reversing the effects of inflammation and scarring in a preclinical model of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a type of lung disease, by targeting Interleukin 11 (IL11), a protein critical to fibrosis and inflammation. Their findings, published in the journal
Science Translational Medicine, have implications for developing new drugs to treat this disease.
Through an international collaboration led by Duke-NUS Medical School and National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS), and involving partner institutions in Germany, USA and the UK, the researchers discovered IPF patients have abnormally high levels of IL11 protein in their lung tissues and that patients with the highest levels in their lungs get the most severe disease. Specific cells called myofibroblasts in the diseased lung cause scarring and these cells are critically dependent on IL11. When IL11 is turned off, these disease cells get turned off and lung fibrosis is reversed.
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Sources
Duke-NUS website
https://www.duke-nus.edu.sg/allnews/detail/index/novel-bio-therapeutics-to-target-reverse-inflammation-and-scarring-in-lungs
Biorxiv
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/336537v1