Melbourne researchers make coeliac breakthrough

Professor Bob Anderson, from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, and his colleagues have recently reported a breakthrough in understanding and treating coeliac disease. They have now identified three key molecules that account for the majority of the immune response to gluten that is observed in people with coeliac disease.

In the study, started nine years ago, Professor Anderson began looking at the immune response activated when coeliac patients were fed products containing wheat, barley or rye. Blood samples were taken six days after the gluten-containing cereals had been consumed, and the strength of the patients' immune responses to 2700 different gluten fragments was measured. The responses showed 90 different peptides caused some level of immune reaction. Three peptides in particular have now been identified as being especially toxic.

The findings are being used to develop a new class of drugs for use in peptide-based immunotherapy which involves injecting patients with a small amount of the peptides to desensitise their body to them.

The first phase of peptide-based immunotherapy trials to assess safety and tolerability were completed in June 2010 and final results are expected in coming months.

The group's most recent findings are published in the following reference: Tye-Din et al. 2010. Science Translational Medicine. Vol. 2(41) DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3001012