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7. Redoxis AB, (Biovitrum AB, Arexis AB), Gothenburg:
Using the recently identified autoimmunity-regulating gene Ncf1, Biovitrum aims for the development of new ways to treat autoimmune conditions like Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). Ncf1 was identified as one major regulating gene of the disease in experimental animal, models of RA and MS in both rats and mice in 2003-2004 (Olofsson et al Nature Genetics, 2003 & Hultqvist et al. PNAS, 2004). Ncf1 was discovered using linkage analysis and positional cloning as an unbiased method to identify new mechanisms of disease pathogenesis and potential new ways to treat the diseases. Ncf1 has prior to this discovery been known to be the major activation component of the NADPH oxidase that after stimulation produce release of radical oxygen species (ROS). Interestingly the experiments showed, in contrary to the general paradigm, that it was a higher level of capacity to produce ROS that protected the animals from developing severe autoimmune conditions. Also it was shown that the capacity to produce ROS had an influence of the homeostasis of autoreactive T cells.
Hence the work in this project will focus on research of the molecular pathways regulated by Ncf1 and to identify new ways to use Ncf1 and the NADPH oxidase complex as target to specifically activate ROS production from the NADPH oxidase complex in a tissue- and time- specific manner so that autoreactive T cells can be controlled with disease protective and therapeutic effects.
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