Researchers have been successful in finding the functionality responsible behind the negative influence of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) on bones, as per a published study in an edition of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
The findings of this study are considered to be good enough to guide attempts to design improved drugs when it comes to reversing RA-related bone loss; it was remarked that these findings can prove invaluable insights for addressing more common forms of osteoporosis.
The study was conducted by Xing with assistance from Ruolin Guo, Motozo Yamashita, Laura Yanoso, Lan Zhao, Qian Zhang, Quan Zhou, Di Chen, David G. Reynolds, Hani Awad, Edward Schwarz, Ying Zhang and Brendan Boyce within the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicineat University of Rochester.
From News-Medical.Net:
While the new drugs are effective for many patients, others experience infections and even lymphoma in a few cases. The new drugs are based on bioengineered versions of proteins made by human immune cells called antibodies, and are very expensive to make. Thus, the field has been searching for smaller, simpler chemicals that would be effective, but with lower costs and fewer side effects.
“The significance of our study is that it identifies SMURF1 as the signaling partner through which TNF does damage in RA-related bone loss,” said Lianping Xing, Ph.D., assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “That has enabled researchers to begin designing small molecule drugs to shut down the action of Smurf 1 and its relatives. Furthermore, since mice engineered to have less Smurf1 expression develop thicker bones, future drugs that shut down Smurf1 may be also useful against more common forms of osteoporosis simply by changing the dose. Of course, this is early-stage work with many obstacles ahead, but it is exciting nonetheless.”
It was found out that traditional RA drugs such as NSAIDs and steroids are effective when it comes to controlling RA symptoms while a new drug class ((e.g. Humira, Remicade and Enbrel) is effective for reversing the RA process by shutting down TNF alpha activity.
