A drug, TEPP-46, that is being assessed to treat multiple sclerosis (MS) may in fact be worsening the progression of the disease, wrote University of Virginia on the Medical Xpress website.
MS is a debilitating disease which affects over one million people in America, in which the immune system attacks the myelin sheath, creating a range of effects in sufferers, from muscle spasms to numbness.
Presently available drugs to treat MS often have unwanted side effects, such as weakening the immune system. Originally developed to fight cancer, TEPP-46 is small-molecule drug that targets the changes in cellular metabolism that occur in both cancer and MS. However, the drug has been shown to produce off-target effects. In the mouse model used by the researchers, the inflammation was directed away from the spinal cord and into the brain. The researchers believed that this was the result of the drug harmfully changing T cells, but could not explain why.
“It was not at all what we expected,” said MS researcher Alban Gaultier, PhD, of University of Virginia. “The take-home message is that we should be very careful and do more fundamental research before we propose to take this to clinical trials.”
