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Coxsackievirus B vaccine protects against CVB-induced type I diabetes in a mouse model

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,820
Newly published research has demonstrated that a coxsackievirus B1 (CVB1) vaccine can protect against CVB1-induced type 1 diabetes in a mouse model:

Paper: A Coxsackievirus B vaccine protects against virus-induced diabetes in an experimental mouse model of type 1 diabetes

Article: Enterovirus vaccine prevents virus-induced diabetes in a T1D experimental model

Type 1 diabetes has been linked to coxsackievirus B1 (ref: 1), coxsackievirus B4 (refs: 1 2) and echovirus 4 (ref: 1). However, since correlation does not automatically imply causation, proving that these viruses actually cause diabetes is more tricky.

This study adds to the evidence that these viruses may trigger type 1 diabetes, as they found that mice immunized with the coxsackievirus B1 vaccine were protected against both acute CVB1 infection and virus-induced diabetes in a mouse model of diabetes.

This paves the way for clinical trials of a coxsackievirus B1 vaccine for humans, which would then provide the opportunity to test whether a CVB1 vaccine can prevent type 1 diabetes in humans.



Ultimately, the development of coxsackievirus B vaccines will likely also prevent the bulk of cases of ME/CFS. ME/CFS tends to be linked to infection with CVB3 and CVB4 mainly, as well as other CVB and echovirus species (ref: 1).

I started a thread about the dire need to develop coxsackievirus B vaccines in order to prevent ME/CFS here:

Coxsackievirus B vaccine appears feasible, and may drastically reduce ME/CFS incidence in future

With ME/CFS being once of the worst diseases you can have in terms of reduced quality of life, a preventative solution for this disease would be of the utmost importance.
 
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Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,820
I wonder if a vaccine would help if there is a current virus.

Not as far as I am aware. The idea of a vaccine is to educate the immune system to create antibodies against a particular virus, so that if you later catch that virus, the immune system is already prepared to fight it with those ready-made antibodies. That will then nip the infection in the bud, and prevent the viral infection spreading more deeply into the body and into various cells and organs.

But once the virus has already got a grip on the body, it's too late for a vaccine.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Vaccines can be used to stimulate the immune system to be more alert even after infection. I think this would require more research to validate it for a particular vaccine and virus. It would boost immunity, but that might actually be a bad thing if the virus is the trigger for ME. Without specific research we cannot say much more.
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,820
Vaccines can be used to stimulate the immune system to be more alert even after infection.

I don't know much about that.

But I am not sure if it would help in the case of the non-cytolytic coxsackievirus B infections found in ME/CFS patients (non-cytolytic infections = viral infections living inside human cells on a long term basis).

I know Dr John Chia once said that in the early days of his ME/CFS research, he could not understand why enterovirus was able to form chronic infections in ME/CFS patients, because that did not make sense given that ME/CFS patients often have constantly high titers of neutralizing antibodies for enterovirus, and so the abundance of the antibodies would be expected to quickly neutralize the enterovirus infection. But in fact the chronic enterovirus persists and continues in spite of all these antibodies

But later he realized that much of the infection in ME/CFS patients is the non-cytolytic form of enterovirus, which lives inside cells, where antibodies can touch it. Non-cytolytic infections are protected against antibody attack by virtue of living inside human cells.

Here's the quote from Dr Chia:
this is a paradox I finally figured out: because I said: why is there a persistent virus infection, when there is so much neutralizing antibody in the blood? The antibodies should neutralize any viruses, right? Well not when they are inside the cell. If they are hiding inside the cells, it can't touch it.

Source: Dr John Chia, Invest in ME Conference 2010 DVD. Timecode 43:43


So in the case of non-cytolytic infections, even if a vaccine did further boost antibody levels, I don't think it would have much effect against non-cytolytic enteroviruses.
 
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Pyrrhus

Senior Member
Messages
4,172
Location
U.S., Earth
Now in humans!

First-in-Human T1D Vaccine Trial Reports Positive Results
https://www.jdrf.org/blog/2021/11/1...s-vaccine-trial-reports-positive-results/?g=0

Excerpt:
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could take a vaccine as a child—like you do for mumps, polio, and measles—and type 1 diabetes (T1D) would not develop? This could be a real option for families in the not-too-distant future.

The viral hypothesis posits that a viral infection may be partly responsible for T1D. The main culprit appears to be coxsackie B—a common pathogen where, in most circumstances, the infection is asymptomatic or results in mild symptoms. (Coxsackie B, however, in rare cases, may also lead to viral meningitis, heart or brain infection, and hand, foot, and mouth disease.)

There have been no vaccines against coxsackie B, until a year ago, when the company Provention Bio started a clinical trial to test its vaccine against coxsackie infection.

This is a first-in-human study of PRV-101, and positive interim results are out. Not only was it well tolerated, but it induced high concentrations of anti-coxsackie B antibodies.