{"id":15967,"date":"2018-03-28T07:01:48","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T07:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/?p=15967"},"modified":"2018-03-28T07:01:48","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T07:01:48","slug":"rituximab-impedes-natural-killer-cell-function-in-cfs-me-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/rituximab-impedes-natural-killer-cell-function-in-cfs-me-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"Rituximab impedes natural killer cell function in CFS\/ME patients"},"content":{"rendered":"

Research abstract:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Rituximab impedes natural killer cell function in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome\/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis patients: A pilot in vitro investigation<\/a> by Natalie Eaton, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Cabanas, Cassandra Balinas, Anne Klein, Donald Staines and Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik in<\/span> BMC Pharmacology and Toxicology\u00a0<\/em>2018 19:12 [Published: 27 March 2018]<\/p>\n

Background:<\/strong><\/p>\n

A recent in vitro<\/a> pilot investigation reported Rituximab significantly reduced natural killer (NK) cell cytotoxicity in healthy donors.<\/p>\n

Chronic fatigue syndrome\/Myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS\/ME) is a debilitating disorder of unknown etiology. A consistent finding is a significant reduction in NK cell cytotoxicity. Rituximab has been reported having questionable potential therapeutic benefits for the treatment of CFS\/ME, however, the potential effects of Rituximab on NK cell cytotoxicity in CFS\/ME patients are yet to be determined.<\/p>\n

Methods:<\/strong><\/p>\n

A total of eight CFS\/ME patients (48.63\u2009\u00b1\u200915.69 years) and nine non-fatigued controls (NFC) (37.56\u2009\u00b1\u200911.06 years) were included using the Fukuda case definition. Apoptotic function, lytic proteins and degranulation markers were measured on isolated NK cells using flow cytometry following overnight incubation with Rituximab at 10 \u03bcg\/ml and 100 \u03bcg\/ml.<\/p>\n

Results:<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was a significant reduction in NK cell lysis between CFS\/ME patients and NFC following incubation with Rituximab at 100 \u03bcg\/ml at<\/p>\n

12.5:1 and 6.25:1 effecter-target (E:T) ratios (p\u2009<\u20090.05). However, there was no significant difference for NFC following incubation with Rituximab at 10 \u03bcg\/ml and 100 \u03bcg\/ml.<\/p>\n

There was no significant difference between CFS\/ME patients and NFC for granzyme A and granzyme B prior to incubation with Rituximab and following overnight incubation with Rituximab at 10 \u03bcg\/ml. There was a significant decrease in granzyme B in CFS\/ME patients compared to NFC with 100 \u03bcg\/ml of Rituximab prior to K562 cells stimulation (p\u2009< 0.05).<\/p>\n

There was a significant increase in CD107a (p\u2009<\u20090.05) and CD107b expression (p\u2009<\u20090.01) in NFC after stimulation with K562 cells prior to incubation with Rituximab. There was a significant increase in CD107b expression between CFS\/ME patients and NFC prior to incubation with Rituximab and without stimulation of K562 cells (p\u2009<\u20090.01).<\/p>\n

Importantly, there was a significant increase in CD107b following overnight incubation with 100 \u03bcg\/ml of Rituximab in NFC prior to K562 cells stimulation (p\u2009<\u20090.01).<\/p>\n

Conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n

This study reports significant decreases in NK cell lysis and a significant increase in NK cell degranulation following Rituximab incubation in vitro in CFS\/ME patients, suggesting Rituximab may be toxic for NK cells. Caution should be observed in clinical trials until further investigations in a safe and controlled in vitro setting are completed.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Griffith news <\/strong>blog post by Louise Durack, March 27, 2018\u00a0: <\/strong>Drug hoped to treat CFS causes impaired immune function, Griffith study says<\/a><\/h3>\n

…\u00a0the use of Rituximab in CFS patients could incur problems with their immune cells and is not beneficial as a potential treatment. The Natural Killer (NK) cells have vital functions in fighting viruses, bacteria and tumours.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found that these functions were significantly impaired when exposed to Rituximab in CFS patients<\/em>,\u201d says Scientific Co-Director of NCNED, Professor Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research abstract: Rituximab impedes natural killer cell function in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome\/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis patients: A pilot in vitro investigation by Natalie Eaton, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Cabanas, Cassandra Balinas, Anne Klein, Donald Staines and Sonya Marshall-Gradisnik in BMC Pharmacology and Toxicology\u00a02018 19:12 [Published: … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[4306,821,4305,4308,4280,4307,722,691,2676,50,1188],"class_list":["post-15967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-anne-klein","tag-blood-immune-cells","tag-cassandra-balinas","tag-helene-cabanas","tag-louise-durack","tag-natalie-eaton","tag-natural-killer-cells","tag-nk-cells","tag-prof-donald-staines","tag-rituximab","tag-sonya-marshall-gradisnik"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5qkYK-49x","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15967"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15990,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15967\/revisions\/15990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wames.org.uk\/cms-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}