Studies Find More Evidence the Microbiome Affects Autoimmune Disease

“We have done interventional studies in animals, and there were two important findings in this context,” says Dr. Kriegel. “One is that certain oral antibiotics were able to prevent the disease in the animal model. Second, we developed a vaccine against E. gallinarum that depleted the bacteria from the tissues and prevented the occurrence of autoimmune disease in mice.”

Kurt Ullman has been a freelance writer for more than 30 years and a contributing writer to The Rheumatologist for 10 years.

References

1. Manfredo Vieira S, Hiltensperger M, Kumar V, et al. Translocation of a gut pathobiont drives autoimmunity in mice and humans. Science. 2018 Mar 9;359(6380):1156–1161.
2. Greiling TM, Dehner C, Chen X, et al. Commensal orthologs of the human autoantigen Ro60 as triggers of autoimmunity in lupus. Sci Transl Med. 2018 Mar 28;10(434). pii: eaan2306.