A cyc­lic pep­tide in a long-term Graves’ dis­ease mouse model

Innov­at­ive pep­tides have been con­ceived to treat sev­eral autoim­mune dis­eases. For the treat­ment of Graves´ dis­ease (GD), newly designed cyc­lic pep­tides mimic the cyl­indrical loops of the extra­cel­lu­lar A domain of a pivotal pro­tein which is involved in the dis­ease pro­cess, the thyroid stim­u­lat­ing hor­mone receptor (TSHR). These pep­tides act as tol­er­iz­ing com­pounds, i. e. they re-estab­lish tol­er­ance towards the anti­gen. In long-term GD mod­els, they improved all dis­ease symp­toms after 2-3 monthly injec­tions. How­ever, they did not induce any immune response in naïve mice.

A cyc­lic pep­tide sig­ni­fic­antly improves thyroid func­tion, thyro­tropin-receptor anti­bod­ies and orbital mucine /collagen con­tent in a long-term Graves’ dis­ease mouse model

Diana T* , Ungerer M* , Wüster C , Faßbender J, Li ZM, Reimann A, Holthoff HP, Kan­itz M, Kahaly GJ. A cyc­lic pep­tide sig­ni­fic­antly improves thyroid func­tion, thyro­tropin-receptor anti­bod­ies and orbital mucine /collagen con­tent in a long-term Graves’ dis­ease mouse model. J Autoim­mun 2021;122:102666; doi: 10.1016/j.jaut.2021.102666
*shared first authorship

Novel his­to­lo­gical method

Stand­ard his­to­lo­gical pro­cessing pro­duces excel­lent stain­ing of sec­tions for most tis­sues, but fails to yield sat­is­fact­ory res­ults in orbits or eye­balls. A novel pro­tocol using tis­sue block stain­ing and domestic adhes­ive tapes res­ul­ted in qual­i­fied integ­ral cryo-sec­tions of whole orbits or eye­balls, and proved to be super­ior to exist­ing his­to­lo­gical pro­cessing meth­ods, yield­ing a 100% suc­cess rate.

Li ZM , Ungerer M , Faßbender J , Wen­hart C, Holthoff HP, Münch G. Tis­sue block stain­ing and domestic adhes­ive tape yield qual­i­fied integ­ral sec­tions of adult mouse orbits and eye­balls. PLoS One 2021;16(8):e0255363; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255363