[SW3-1] Quarter century battle against EHEC infectious disease; Muse cell therapy challenge on infectious diseases
In 1996, we experienced the largest outbreak of Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) O157 infection with contaminated school lunches. After this incident, we have been pursuing the question why people die from EHEC infection. In 1994, we had established a lethal mouse model which presented the central nervous system defects such as hindlimb paralysis with oral administration of EHEC O157. Another outbreak happened in 2011, of which reminded us how deadly the EHEC infection was. The contaminated food was raw beef as known as “Yukke”, that was associated with highly toxic EHEC O111. In the outbreak, 34 patients developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), 21 (62%) co-developed encephalopathy and five death occurred among them. This incident indicated us that the death in EHEC infection occurs due to encephalopathy. We used EHEC O111 oral inoculation mouse model to test Muse cell effect against the disease and successfully rescued mice from lethality in 2020. Muse cells not only inhibited cytokine storm, but also left no sequelae in mice that makes it attractive as a therapy for EHEC infection with high probability of developing long term sequalae after recovery from HUS and encephalopathy. Now, Muse cells are in several clinical trials testing the effects in inflammatory diseases such as cerebral infarction and myocardial infarction. We discovered that Muse cells are also capable of curing a bacterial infectious disease. Currently, the novel coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) is devastating the world, we have started Muse cell testing to a SARS-CoV-2 animal model that we hope our research moves this field forward to cure COVID-19 patients in the future.