Nature Biotechnology pp 1215 - 1220

Researchers have genetically engineered a type of white blood cell to seek out and destroy rogue white blood cells responsible for an autoimmune disease in animals that resembles multiple sclerosis in humans (MS). In multiple sclerosis, the body’s white blood cells (T cells) become misdirected, attacking the nervous system they were designed to protect and leading to impairment of nerve function and debilitating disease. In the December issue of Nature Biotechnology, researchers at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital find a way of selectively killing misdirected T cells that is potentially efficacious and of low toxicity. By engineering disease-fighting T cells with receptors modified to recognize rogue T cells, the researchers succeeded in killing rogue cells in the culture dish and protecting animals induced to develop experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE).

To achieve this, Terrence Geiger and colleagues modified T cells to express an artificial receptor that contains elements that can bind to rogue T cells. When rogue cells bind the modified receptors of these therapeutic T cells, the latter proliferate and kill the rogue cells. All mice survived that were treated with modified T cells after induction of EAE. In comparison, a half or more of mice receiving no treatment or nonmodified cells succumbed to EAE disease.