BioCentury
ARTICLE | Translation in Brief

Arginine and TH17 in lupus

How ARG1 and MDSCs could become new therapeutic targets for lupus

April 21, 2016 7:00 AM UTC

GlaxoSmithKline plc's (LSE:GSK; NYSE:GSK) launch of Benlysta belimumab for lupus in 2011 marked the first major advance for the disease since the introduction of corticosteroids and chemotherapeutic drugs decades ago, but there has been little development in the field since then, and Benlysta is not effective for many patients. A study published in Science Translational Medicine by a China-U.S. team has identified arginase 1 (ARG1) and myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) as lupus targets that promote Th17 differentiation in the disease, and produced a humanized mouse model that could help drug development.

In the paper, researchers from Jilin University and Columbia University showed that MDSCs promote inflammatory Th17 differentiation and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) disease activity when ARG1 is present...