Wednesday, December 3, 2008

October 15, 2008

This week's journal club presentation will be given by Jason Ptacek (Nolan lab). We will be in CCSR 4205 (12:30 - 1:30pm).

The proteasome inhibitor bortezomib depletes plasma cells and protects mice with lupus-like disease from nephritis.

Neubert K, Meister S, Moser K, Weisel F, Maseda D, Amann K, Wiethe C, Winkler TH, Kalden JR, Manz RA, Voll RE.

Nat Med. 2008 Jul;14(7):748-55.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease that affects multiple organs and autoantibodies contribute to the pathogenesis of the disease. The last time a drug was approved for the treatment of SLE Eisenhower was president, despite the great need for new drugs; more people in the US have SLE than HIV or MS. Recently, the Genentech drug, Rituximab, failed a trial testing its use in SLE. Ritiximab works well in rheumatoid arthritis for some patients by depleting B cells but it does not deplete plasma cells. This paper discusses the use of bortezomib, a proteasome inhibitor, to target plasma cells. Thus far, the results look promising in their mouse studies.