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This would have been far more exciting if they could have made this discovery 10 years ago.



Gene-Based Intramuscular Interferon-beta Therapy for Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis.

Mol Ther. 2006 Jun 15;
Jaini R, Hannaman D, Johnson JM, Bernard RM, Altuntas CZ, Delasalas MM, Kesaraju P, Luxembourg A, Evans CF, Tuohy VK.
Department of Immunology, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA.

In contrast to serial injections of recombinant interferon-beta (IFN-beta) for long-term therapy of multiple sclerosis (MS), prolonged systemic delivery of proteins derived through in vivo gene transfer may provide a more clinically relevant alternative. Here we compare the therapeutic efficacies of electroporation (EP)-mediated intramuscular IFN-beta gene transfer with repeated alternate-day injections of recombinant IFN-beta after the onset of relapsing-remitting experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model widely used in MS research. We show for the first time that a single EP-mediated intramuscular administration of 20 mug of an IFN-beta-expressing plasmid provides long-term expression of interferon-inducible genes and is therapeutic in ongoing established EAE. The achieved therapeutic effects of IFN-beta gene delivery were comparable to an 8-week regimen of 10,000 IU rIFN-beta injected every other day and involved a significant inhibition of disease progression and a significant reduction of EAE relapses compared to untreated or null-vector-treated mice. Our results indicate the viability of a convenient and effective gene-based alternative for long-term IFN-beta protein therapy in MS.

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