Scientists Use Cloning Technique to Produce Human Stem Cells

Breakthrough bypasses need to use cells from fertilized embryos

By EJ Mundell

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists report they've used a cloning technique to reprogram an ordinary human skin cell to become an embryonic stem cell. In turn, the new stem cell has the potential to transform into any type of cell in the body.

Besides marking a breakthrough in stem cell technology, which has the potential to one day cure a myriad of illnesses, the achievement has some concerned that scientists are moving a step closer to human cloning.

That's because the new stem cell is genetically identical to cells from the person from whom it was derived. Stem cells can differentiate into cells for all of the tissue types that the body needs, such as nerves, muscle and bone.

While Dolly the Sheep was cloned in 1996, and other species have been cloned since, researchers have been unable to clone a primate such as a monkey, chimpanzee or human. However, the technological advances described in the new study are such that "it's a matter of time before they produce a cloned monkey," Jose Cibelli, a cloning expert at Michigan State University who wasn't involved in the study, told the Wall Street Journal.

The new research was published online May 15 in the journal Cell, and was led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a senior scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, in partnership with researchers at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU).

The research involved a version of what's known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, where the cell's nucleus -- which contains all a person's genetic information -- is transferred into an egg cell that has had all of its DNA removed. Once the new nucleus is in place, the unfertilized egg cell proceeds to develop and produce stem cells, according to an OHSU news release.

"Stem cells derived through this technique demonstrated their ability to convert just like normal embryonic stem cells, into several different cell types, including nerve cells, liver cells and heart cells," Mitalipov said in the news release. "While there is much work to be done in developing safe and effective stem cell treatments, we believe this is a significant step forward in developing the cells that could be used in regenerative medicine."

Regenerative medicine is the term used to describe therapies where stem cells are used to regenerate tissues lost to illness or injury.

One key point in the new research: Creation of the new, functioning embryonic stem cell did not involve the use of fertilized embryos, the focus of heated debate over the past decade.

Mitalipov's team says the road to success was not easy, because human egg cells seem to be more fragile than those from other species. That meant that methods had to be tested in monkeys first, in a trial-and-error fashion, before moving to human eggs.

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Scientists Use Cloning Technique to Produce Human Stem Cells

WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists report they've used a cloning technique to reprogram an ordinary human skin cell to become an embryonic stem cell. In turn, the new stem cell has the potential to transform into any type of cell in the body.

Besides marking a breakthrough in stem cell technology, which has the potential to one day cure a myriad of illnesses, the achievement has some concerned that scientists are moving a step closer to human cloning.

That's because the new stem cell is genetically identical to cells from the person from whom it was derived. Stem cells can differentiate into cells for all of the tissue types that the body needs, such as nerves, muscle and bone.

While Dolly the Sheep was cloned in 1996, and other species have been cloned since, researchers have been unable to clone a primate such as a monkey, chimpanzee or human. However, the technological advances described in the new study are such that "it's a matter of time before they produce a cloned monkey," Jose Cibelli, a cloning expert at Michigan State University who wasn't involved in the study, told the Wall Street Journal.

The new research was published online May 15 in the journal Cell, and was led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a senior scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, in partnership with researchers at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU).

The research involved a version of what's known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, where the cell's nucleus -- which contains all a person's genetic information -- is transferred into an egg cell that has had all of its DNA removed. Once the new nucleus is in place, the unfertilized egg cell proceeds to develop and produce stem cells, according to an OHSU news release.

"Stem cells derived through this technique demonstrated their ability to convert just like normal embryonic stem cells, into several different cell types, including nerve cells, liver cells and heart cells," Mitalipov said in the news release. "While there is much work to be done in developing safe and effective stem cell treatments, we believe this is a significant step forward in developing the cells that could be used in regenerative medicine."

Regenerative medicine is the term used to describe therapies where stem cells are used to regenerate tissues lost to illness or injury.

One key point in the new research: Creation of the new, functioning embryonic stem cell did not involve the use of fertilized embryos, the focus of heated debate over the past decade.

Mitalipov's team says the road to success was not easy, because human egg cells seem to be more fragile than those from other species. That meant that methods had to be tested in monkeys first, in a trial-and-error fashion, before moving to human eggs.

The researchers downplayed the notion that this research might somehow lead to human cloning.

"While the method might be considered a technique for cloning stem cells, commonly called therapeutic cloning, the same method would not likely be successful in producing human clones otherwise known as reproductive cloning," OHSU said in a university press release. Attempts over many years to create monkey clones have failed, the university noted, and human cells are even more fragile and less amenable to cloning.

"Our research is directed toward generating stem cells for use in future treatments to combat disease," Mitalipov added. "While nuclear transfer breakthroughs often lead to a public discussion about the ethics of human cloning, this is not our focus, nor do we believe our findings might be used by others to advance the possibility of human reproductive cloning."

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Cibelli said he believes the new achievement might encourage someone to attempt human cloning, "though that remains a distant and disturbing prospect."

-- E.J. Mundell
Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCES: Oregon Health & Sciences University, news release, May 15, 2013; Wall Street Journal

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Scientists Spot Cancer Metabolism Changes

SUNDAY, April 21 (HealthDay News) -- Hundreds of potential targets for new cancer drugs that could starve tumors have been identified by scientists who analyzed gene expression data from 22 types of malignancies.

The study revealed a number of cancer-associated changes in the metabolism of cells. To support their uncontrolled growth, cancer cells need to reprogram and "supercharge" a cell's normal metabolism, the researchers explained.

Pinpointing these metabolic changes could prove important in efforts to develop drugs that interfere with cancer metabolism, according to the study, which was published online April 21 in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

"The importance of this new study is its scope," lead investigator Dennis Vitkup, an associate professor of biomedical informatics at Columbia University Medical Center, said in a center news release. "So far, people have focused mainly on a few genes involved in major metabolic processes. Our study provides a comprehensive, global view of diverse metabolic alterations at the level of gene expression."

One of the major findings was that cancer-induced changes in metabolism are significantly different in various types of tumors.

"Our study clearly demonstrates that there are no single and universal changes in cancer metabolism," study co-author Dr. Matthew Vander Heiden, an assistant professor at MIT, said in the news release. "That means that to understand transformation in cancer metabolism, researchers will need to consider how different tumor types adapt their metabolism to meet their specific needs."

Targeting metabolism may be a way to strike cancer at its roots, according to Vitkup.

"You can knock out one, but the cells will usually find another pathway to turn on proliferation. Targeting metabolism may be more powerful, because if you starve a cell of energy or materials, it has nowhere to go," he explained.

-- Robert Preidt
Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCE: Columbia University Medical Center, news release, April 21, 2013

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Scientists May Have Spotted Brain's 'Numbers Center'

THURSDAY, April 18 (HealthDay News) -- The area of the brain that's activated when people look at numerals such as "7" and "60" has been pinpointed by researchers.

This spot is only about one-fifth of an inch across and consists of 1 million to 2 million nerve cells in the inferior temporal gyrus, the Stanford University School of Medicine researchers said.

The inferior temporal gyrus is known to be involved in the processing of visual information.

Researchers also found that, relative to neighboring areas, activity in this newly identified spot substantially decreased when people viewed numbers that were spelled out ("one" instead of "1"), homophones ("won" instead of "1") or false fonts in which a number or letter had been altered.

"This is the first-ever study to show the existence of a cluster of nerve cells in the human brain that specializes in processing numerals," Dr. Josef Parvizi, an associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences and director of Stanford's human intracranial cognitive electrophysiology program, said in a school news release.

"In this small nerve-cell population, we saw a much bigger response to numerals than to very similar-looking, similar-sounding and similar-meaning symbols," he explained.

The study in the April 17 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience could open the door to further discoveries about how math is processed in the brain, the news release suggested. It may also help researchers find new ways to help people with dyslexia for numbers and those unable to process numerical information, a disorder called dyscalculia.

Parvizi added that the finding is "a dramatic demonstration of our brain circuitry's capacity to change in response to education. No one is born with the innate ability to recognize numerals."

-- Robert Preidt
Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCE: Stanford University, news release, April 16, 2013

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Scientists Create Breast Cancer Survival Predictor

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Scientists Find New Clues to Early Onset Alzheimer's

Too much plaque-building protein produced in people with certain genes, study finds

By Dennis Thompson

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 12 (HealthDay News) -- People with genetic mutations that lead to inherited, early onset Alzheimer's disease overproduce a longer, stickier form of amyloid beta, the protein fragment that clumps into plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, a small new study has found.

Researchers found that these people make about 20 percent more of a type of amyloid beta -- amyloid beta 42 -- than family members who do not carry the Alzheimer's mutation, according to research published in the June 12 edition of Science Translational Medicine.

Further, researchers Rachel Potter at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and colleagues found that amyloid beta 42 disappears from cerebrospinal fluid much more quickly than other known forms of amyloid beta, possibly because it is being deposited on plaques in the brain.

Alzheimer's researchers have long believed that brain plaques created by amyloid beta cause the memory loss and thought impairment that comes with the disease.

This new study does not prove that amyloid plaques cause Alzheimer's, but it does provide more evidence regarding the way the disease develops and will guide future research into diagnosis and treatment, said Dr. Judy Willis, a neurologist and spokesperson for the American Academy of Neurology.

The mutation occurs in the presenilin gene and has previously been linked to increased production of amyloid beta 42 over amyloid beta 38 and 40, the other types of amyloid beta found in cerebrospinal fluid, the study said.

Earlier studies of the human brain after death and using animal research have suggested that amyloid beta 42 is the most important contributor to Alzheimer's.

The new study confirms that connection and also quantifies overproduction of amyloid beta 42 in living human brains. The investigators also found that amyloid beta 42 is exchanged and recycled in the body, slowing its exit from the brain.

"The amyloid protein buildup has been hypothesized to correlate with the symptoms of Alzheimer's by causing neuronal damage, but we do not know what causes the abnormalities of amyloid overproduction and decreased removal," Willis said.

The findings from the new study "are supportive of abnormal turnover of amyloid occurring in people with the genetic mutation decades before the onset of their symptoms," she said.

Researchers conducted the study by comparing 11 carriers of mutated presenilin genes with family members who do not have the mutation. They used advanced scanning technology that can "tag" and then track newly created proteins in the body. With this technology, they tracked the production and clearance of amyloid beta 40 and 42 in the participants' cerebrospinal fluid.

This research gives clinicians a potential "marker" to check when evaluating the Alzheimer's risk of a person with this genetic mutation, Willis said.

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Could Scientists Peek Into Your Dreams?

In small study, computer programs and brain MRIs identified visual images during sleep

By Barbara Bronson Gray

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, April 4 (HealthDay News) -- Talk about mind reading. Researchers have discovered a potential way to decode your dreams, predicting the content of the visual imagery you've experienced on the basis of neural activity recorded during sleep.

Visual experiences you have when dreaming are detectable by the same type of brain activity that occurs when looking at actual images when you're awake, the small new study suggests.

The scientists created decoding computer programs based on brain activity measured while wide-awake study participants looked at certain images. Then, right after being awakened from the early stages of sleep, the researchers asked the subjects to describe the dream they were having before being disturbed.

The researchers used functional MRI to monitor brain activity of the participants and polysomnography to record the physical changes that occur during sleep. They compared evidence of brain activity when participants were awake and looking at real images to the brain activity they saw when participants were dreaming, when they were in light -- or early -- sleep. Functional MRIs directly measure blood flow in the brain, providing information on brain activity.

Published April 4 in the journal Science, the study shows it may be possible to use brain activity patterns to understand something about what a person is dreaming about, according to Yukiyasu Kamitani, lead author and head of neuroinformatics at ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, in Kyoto, Japan.

"Our current approach requires the data of image viewing and sleep within the same [person]," Kamitani said. "But there are methods being developed for aligning brain patterns across people. It may become possible to build a decoder that works for different people with a small amount of data for calibration."

While the research may conjure up images of science fiction movies -- such as aliens from another planet finding a way to reveal our most private mental activities -- there are practical applications to the research, Kamitani said.

"There is evidence suggesting that the pattern of spontaneous brain activity is relevant to health issues, including psychiatric disorders," Kamitani explained. "Our method could relate spontaneous brain activity to waking experience, potentially providing clues for better interpretations of [brain activity]."

The research involved only three participants, who, over seven or 10 sleep "experiences," were awakened and asked for a visual report a minimum of 200 times each.

The authors gave an example of what a study participant said when awakened: "Yes, well, I saw a person. It was something like a scene. I hid a key in a place between a chair and a bed, and someone took it." Researchers then compared the participant's description to the functional MRI activity pattern before awakening. This pattern was put through a machine learning decoder assisted by vocabulary and image databases. The system's prediction identified a man, a key, a bed and a chair, which compared closely to the participant's immediate report.

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Could Scientists Peek Into Your Dreams?

Title: Could Scientists Peek Into Your Dreams?
Category: Health News
Created: 4/4/2013 2:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 4/5/2013 12:00:00 AM

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Scientists ID Gene Behind Early Onset Puberty

Discovery could help children with 'central precocious puberty,' give insights to development

By Robert Preidt

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 5 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists say they've identified a gene mutation behind a condition that causes children to undergo puberty before the age of 9.

The condition, known as central precocious puberty, appears to be inherited via a gene passed along by fathers, say researchers reporting online June 5 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Besides helping children with central precocious puberty, "these findings will open the door for a new understanding of what controls the timing of puberty" generally, co-senior study author Dr. Ursula Kaiser, chief of the endocrinology, diabetes and hypertension division at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said in a hospital news release.

According to the authors, the mutation leads to the start of puberty before age 8 in girls and before age 9 in boys. That's earlier than the typical onset of puberty, which begins in girls between ages 8 and 13 and in boys between ages 9 and 14.

The study included genetic analyses of 40 people from 15 families with a history of early puberty. In five of the 15 families, the researchers discovered four mutations in the MKRN3 gene. A mutation in the MKRN3 gene can lead to premature activation of reproductive hormones and trigger early puberty, the study authors explained in the news release.

All of the people with the MKRN3 mutations inherited them from their fathers.

One expert who reviewed the research said the finding should be a great advance for children with central precocious puberty.

Testing children for the MKRN3 mutation "may help in the diagnosis, preventing the use of extensive testing and procedures such as MRI of the head," explained Dr. Patricia Vuguin, pediatric endocrinologist at Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

She said better diagnostic tests would help spot patients at risk for early puberty and problems that often accompany it, such as short stature, psychological issues and other possible health issues. More generally, "the diagnosis will also help understand the role of this gene and other associated genes on how and when kids go into puberty, an area that is currently not clear," Vuguin said.

The findings will also be presented June 17 at the Endocrine Society's annual meeting.

View the original article here

Scientists Use Cloning Technique to Produce Human Stem Cells

Breakthrough bypasses need to use cells from fertilized embryos

By EJ Mundell

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists report they've used a cloning technique to reprogram an ordinary human skin cell to become an embryonic stem cell. In turn, the new stem cell has the potential to transform into any type of cell in the body.

Besides marking a breakthrough in stem cell technology, which has the potential to one day cure a myriad of illnesses, the achievement has some concerned that scientists are moving a step closer to human cloning.

That's because the new stem cell is genetically identical to cells from the person from whom it was derived. Stem cells can differentiate into cells for all of the tissue types that the body needs, such as nerves, muscle and bone.

While Dolly the Sheep was cloned in 1996, and other species have been cloned since, researchers have been unable to clone a primate such as a monkey, chimpanzee or human. However, the technological advances described in the new study are such that "it's a matter of time before they produce a cloned monkey," Jose Cibelli, a cloning expert at Michigan State University who wasn't involved in the study, told the Wall Street Journal.

The new research was published online May 15 in the journal Cell, and was led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a senior scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, in partnership with researchers at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU).

The research involved a version of what's known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, where the cell's nucleus -- which contains all a person's genetic information -- is transferred into an egg cell that has had all of its DNA removed. Once the new nucleus is in place, the unfertilized egg cell proceeds to develop and produce stem cells, according to an OHSU news release.

"Stem cells derived through this technique demonstrated their ability to convert just like normal embryonic stem cells, into several different cell types, including nerve cells, liver cells and heart cells," Mitalipov said in the news release. "While there is much work to be done in developing safe and effective stem cell treatments, we believe this is a significant step forward in developing the cells that could be used in regenerative medicine."

Regenerative medicine is the term used to describe therapies where stem cells are used to regenerate tissues lost to illness or injury.

One key point in the new research: Creation of the new, functioning embryonic stem cell did not involve the use of fertilized embryos, the focus of heated debate over the past decade.

Mitalipov's team says the road to success was not easy, because human egg cells seem to be more fragile than those from other species. That meant that methods had to be tested in monkeys first, in a trial-and-error fashion, before moving to human eggs.

View the original article here

Scientists Pinpoint How Deep Brain Stimulation Eases OCD

By Amanda Gardner

HealthDay Reporter

SUNDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Deep brain stimulation has helped people with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, and new research begins to explain why.

A Dutch study appearing in the Feb. 24 online issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience found the procedure essentially restored normal function in a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens.

The nucleus accumbens "is part of a greater brain network," explained study author Dr. Martijn Figee. "This network is involved in motivation and the processing of rewards, and its activity is disturbed in [obsessive-compulsive disorder], probably explaining why [patients] are stuck in pathological behaviors at the cost of healthy ones."

So, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is essentially the result of faulty wiring in the brain.

It's not so much a disorder of a specific part of the brain than it is a "disorder of neurocircuitry," explained Dr. Brian Snyder, director of functional and restorative neurosurgery at Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y.

About 1 percent of U.S. adults suffer from the condition, which involves unwanted, intrusive thoughts or obsessions that then spur compulsive behavior.

While a person without OCD might momentarily worry that he or she has forgotten to lock the door, that thought is quickly balanced by the realization that, yes, the door has indeed been locked.

For a person with OCD, on the other hand, the thought that the door is unlocked will recur and fall into a repetitive pattern of thinking (obsession) and checking to make sure the door is locked (compulsion).

Dr. Wayne Goodman, professor and chair of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City described OCD as a kind of "reverberating circuit."

Deep brain stimulation (DBS), which is widely used for severe Parkinson's and experimentally to treat major depression, has limited approval in the United States to treat OCD that hasn't responded to other treatments.

But experts haven't been sure why the procedure worked.

This study involved 16 patients with OCD and 13 healthy controls, all of whom had electrodes implanted in the nucleus accumbens area of the brain. They then underwent functional MRI brain scans while performing a task that involved the anticipation of reward (the type of activity that might trigger OCD).

OCD symptoms improved an average of 50 percent while brain activity -- not only in the nucleus accumbens but also in a larger brain network -- was normalized, said Figee, who is a psychiatrist with the DBS psychiatry department at Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

"This may explain why patients with DBS experience very fast changes in a wide array of motivational and behavioral problems," he added. "This is clinically important because it indicates that DBS could also help for other disorders that have similar network disturbances, like addiction or eating disorders."

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Scientists Explore How Zinc Fights Off Infection

Title: Scientists Explore How Zinc Fights Off Infection
Category: Health News
Created: 2/7/2013 12:35:00 PM
Last Editorial Review: 2/8/2013 12:00:00 AM

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Scientists Working Toward Pill for Celiac Disease

Dec. 21, 2012 -- Scientists say they’re working on a pill that may one day help people with celiac disease tolerate foods that contain gluten, a protein that is found in wheat and other grains.

“It would be pretty much like the Lactaid pill,” says researcher Justin B. Siegel, PhD, an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular medicine, and chemistry, at the University of California at Davis, referring to a product that helps people who get an upset stomach when they drink or eat dairy foods.

In a study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers describe testing a new enzyme called KumaMax that breaks down gluten.

In a test tube, the enzyme -- which was discovered in bacteria that live in Japanese hot springs and modified slightly in the lab -- dismantled more than 95% of a protein component that’s thought to trigger celiac disease.

The enzyme hasn’t yet been tested in people. Researchers say that’s the next step.

They aren’t the only group working on this kind of a treatment for celiac disease, says Joseph A. Murray, MD, a gastroenterologist and celiac disease specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Murray recently reviewed experimental approaches for treating celiac disease, but he was not involved in the research.

A company called Alvine pharmaceuticals is also testing an enzyme-based pill. Early results show that people with celiac disease who got the experimental pill had less damage to their small intestine after eating food containing gluten compared to those who got a placebo. But larger studies are needed to confirm those results.

Even if the pills work, they “won’t be a passport to eating gluten with impunity,” says Murray.

“It probably will only reduce your sensitivity to gluten, it won’t block it. Instead of taking in no gluten, you might be able to take in the equivalent of half a slice of bread and get away with it. It’s very unlikely that you could eat a pizza and get away with it,” says Murray, who has been a paid consultant for Alvine.

“It may make life better, but it’s really an adjunct to the continued effort to be gluten-free.”

In celiac disease, gluten proteins trigger an immune system attack on the lining of the gut. Over time, damage prevents the absorption of important nutrients and may lead to vitamin and mineral deficiencies that cause hair loss, depression, and brittle bones.

Currently, the only treatment for celiac disease is to avoid foods that contain gluten.

Murray says many of his patients find that despite their best efforts to avoid wheat, they end up eating some at least once a month because it turns up in foods they didn’t prepare themselves or because they can’t say no to a favorite treat.

“It’s very difficult to avoid. We’re in a very gluten-rich environment,” Murray says.

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Scientists Working Toward Pill for Celiac Disease

ByBrenda Goodman, MA
WebMD Health News Reviewed byBrunilda Nazario, MD

Dec. 21, 2012 -- Scientists say they’re working on a pill that may one day help people with celiac disease tolerate foods that contain gluten, a protein that is found in wheat and other grains.

“It would be pretty much like the Lactaid pill,” says researcher Justin B. Siegel, PhD, an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular medicine, and chemistry, at the University of California at Davis, referring to a product that helps people who get an upset stomach when they drink or eat dairy foods.

In a study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers describe testing a new enzyme called KumaMax that breaks down gluten.

In a test tube, the enzyme -- which was discovered in bacteria that live in Japanese hot springs and modified slightly in the lab -- dismantled more than 95% of a protein component that’s thought to trigger celiac disease.

The enzyme hasn’t yet been tested in people. Researchers say that’s the next step.

Gluten-Free Diet: Getting Started

Other Research Also Under Way

They aren’t the only group working on this kind of a treatment for celiac disease, says Joseph A. Murray, MD, a gastroenterologist and celiac disease specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Murray recently reviewed experimental approaches for treating celiac disease, but he was not involved in the research.

A company called Alvine pharmaceuticals is also testing an enzyme-based pill. Early results show that people with celiac disease who got the experimental pill had less damage to their small intestine after eating food containing gluten compared to those who got a placebo. But larger studies are needed to confirm those results.

Even if the pills work, they “won’t be a passport to eating gluten with impunity,” says Murray.

“It probably will only reduce your sensitivity to gluten, it won’t block it. Instead of taking in no gluten, you might be able to take in the equivalent of half a slice of bread and get away with it. It’s very unlikely that you could eat a pizza and get away with it,” says Murray, who has been a paid consultant for Alvine.

“It may make life better, but it’s really an adjunct to the continued effort to be gluten-free.”

Tough to Avoid Wrong Foods

In celiac disease, gluten proteins trigger an immune system attack on the lining of the gut. Over time, damage prevents the absorption of important nutrients and may lead to vitamin and mineral deficiencies that cause hair loss, depression, and brittle bones.

Currently, the only treatment for celiac disease is to avoid foods that contain gluten.

Murray says many of his patients find that despite their best efforts to avoid wheat, they end up eating some at least once a month because it turns up in foods they didn’t prepare themselves or because they can’t say no to a favorite treat.

“It’s very difficult to avoid. We’re in a very gluten-rich environment,” Murray says.

View Article Sources

SOURCES:

Gordon, S. Journal of the American Chemical Society, Nov. 15, 2012.

Joseph A. Murray, MD, gastroenterologist, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

Justin B. Siegel, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular medicine, and chemistry, University of California at Davis, Davis, Calif.

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