Author: Tina Hesman Saey / Source: Science News
A lack of certain mysterious genetic molecules may spin the immune system out of control and lead to lupus.
People with lupus have lower than normal levels of circular RNAs, triggering an immune reaction meant to fight viruses, biochemist Lingling Chen of the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology and her colleagues discovered. Switching on the body’s virus-fighting mechanisms when no harmful viruses are around may lead the immune system to attack the body. The team found that raising levels of these RNAs, known as circRNAs, in cells taken from lupus patients restored normal activity of a protein involved in rousing one arm of the immune system.
The research, reported April 25 in Cell, raises “an intriguing possibility that introduction of certain circRNAs can dampen autoimmunity associated with lupus, suggesting circular RNA as a therapeutic strategy,” says Howard Chang, a geneticist at Stanford University who was not involved in the work.
The most common type of lupus, systemic lupus erythematosus, is an autoimmune disorder in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues and organs. Though the exact number of people with this form of lupus isn’t known, estimates range between 161,000 and 322,000 people in the United States.
Scientists have known for decades that cells produce circular RNAs at low levels while making messenger RNAs, or mRNAs. During that process, DNA instructions in genes are copied into RNA. That initial copy contains both…
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