Prophylactic and therapeutic treatment with a synthetic analogue of a parasitic worm product prevents experimental arthritis and inhibits IL-1β production via NRF2-mediated counter-regulation of the inflammasome

Rzepecka, Justyna and Pineda, Miguel A. and Al-Riyami, Lamyaa and Rodgers, David T. and Huggan, Judith K. and Lumb, Felicity E. and Khalaf, Abedawn I. and Meakin, Paul J. and Corbet, Marlene and Ashford, Michael L. and Suckling, Colin J. and Harnett, Margaret M. and Harnett, William (2015) Prophylactic and therapeutic treatment with a synthetic analogue of a parasitic worm product prevents experimental arthritis and inhibits IL-1β production via NRF2-mediated counter-regulation of the inflammasome. Journal of Autoimmunity, 60. pp. 59-73. ISSN 0896-8411 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaut.2015.04.005)

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Abstract

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) remains a debilitating autoimmune condition as many patients are refractory to existing conventional and biologic therapies, and hence successful development of novel treatments remains a critical requirement. Towards this, we now describe a synthetic drug-like small molecule analogue, SMA-12b, of an immunomodulatory parasitic worm product, ES-62, which acts both prophylactically and therapeutically against collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) in mice. Mechanistic analysis revealed that SMA-12b modifies the expression of a number of inflammatory response genes, particularly those associated with the inflammasome in mouse bone marrow-derived macrophages and indeed IL-1β was the most down-regulated gene. Consistent with this, IL-1β was significantly reduced in the joints of mice with CIA treated with SMA-12b. SMA-12b also increased the expression of a number of genes associated with anti-oxidant responses that are controlled by the transcription factor NRF2 and critically, was unable to inhibit expression of IL-1b by macrophages derived from the bone marrow of NRF2/ mice. Collectively, these data suggest that SMA-12b could provide the basis of an entirely novel approach to fulfilling the urgent need for new treatments for RA.

ORCID iDs

Rzepecka, Justyna, Pineda, Miguel A., Al-Riyami, Lamyaa, Rodgers, David T., Huggan, Judith K., Lumb, Felicity E. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9742-5125, Khalaf, Abedawn I. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9162-7527, Meakin, Paul J., Corbet, Marlene, Ashford, Michael L., Suckling, Colin J., Harnett, Margaret M. and Harnett, William ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9545-9401;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)