CLINICAL AND IMMUNOLOGICAL EFFICIENCY OF MURAMYL DIPEPTIDE IN THE TREATMENT OF ATOPIC DISEASES

Abstract

Increased incidence of allergic diseases worldwide reflects some mangles of the existing pharmacotherapy concept which ignores some etiopathogenetic aspects of clinical atopy. Meanwhile, understanding cellular and molecular mechanisms of allergy may create prerequisites for development of new therapeutic areas, in order to effectively influence pathogenesis points of allergic inflammation and, thus, leading to therapeutic success. The review article concerns an antagonism between the two populations of T-helper cells (Th1 and Th2) carried out mainly by the action of IFNγ produced by activated Th1, and IL-4 secreted by activated Th2 which is at the heart of modern concept on the regulation of adaptive immunity. The prospects of immunotherapy of allergic diseases based on the polarization of the immune response are discussed, i.e., an activation of Th1 responses and Th2 suppression. This functional polarization can be mediated by the innate immune receptor agonist, i.e., synthetic and natural minimally-sized biologically active fragments (MBAF) with pathogen-associated molecular patterns. In this respect, a very promising drug registered in Russia is based on the synthetic MBAF, glucosaminylmuramyldipeptide (GMDP), The liсopid immunomodulator. This is due to the fact that GMDP, being an active substance of Liсopid, is a highly specific ligand for the NOD2 receptor of innate immunity factors; it may cause activation of the NF-kB transcription factor, and production of multiple immunoregulatory cytokines. Clinical and immunological efficacy of Licopid application in conventional therapy of atopic allergic diseases (asthma, atopic dermatitis, atopic variant of acute obstructive bronchitis) is presented as an overview of pre-clinical and clinical trials.

Keywords

• glucosaminyl muramyl dipeptide (gmdp)
• allergic diseases
• atopy
• pathogenesis
• ige