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Aptamers against interleukin-12-related cytokines as novel therapeutics in autoimmune diseases

Endogenous interleukin (IL)-12 plays a pivotal role in promoting cell-mediated immunity against intracellular pathogens. Uncontrolled cell-mediated immune responses, however, may lead to chronic inflammation and autoimmune disease. Unfortunately, treatment of either infection or autoimmunity with immunomodulating drugs always incur the danger of favouring the other form of disease. The recent discovery of the dimeric IL-12-related cytokine IL-23 adds to our understanding of the fine tuning of cellular immunity. Only recently, studies revealed IL-23, and not IL-12, to be the decisive factor in this immune deviation and a variety of autoimmune disorders have now been shown to be strikingly dependent on IL-23. Therefore, targeting of IL-23-mediated, rather than IL-12-dependent, mechanisms represent a promising therapeutic approach for autoimmune diseases. The invention of aptamers that are capable of neutralising IL-23 and/or IL-12 and their potential use as autoimmune disease therapeutics will be discussed.