Are we aiming to miss in translational autoimmunity treatments?

Autoimmunity treatments, fruitfully pioneered in mouse models, can be disappointing or result in immunosuppression and opportunistic infections in translational trials. Many possible reasons exist, but one major, overlooked reason may be the treatment timing in relation to circadian oscillations of the immune system. Mice and humans both have immunological circadian clocks and experience the same circulatory oscillations of immune cells with regards to their sleep/wake phases, but have opposite sleep/wake phases with regard to the daylight cycle. Therefore, researchers mainly study mice and potential autoimmunity treatments during the murine sleep/rest phase, which is when pro-inflammatory mediators and more adaptive immune cells are prevalent in the circulation. In translational trials, however, treatment administration happens primarily during a patient’s wake/activity phase, during the daytime, which is when more local and acute immune responses are active in the circulation. Therefore, we believe that the most opportune window for autoimmunity treatment may be missed in translational trials. Shifting the timing, and adjusting dosing to target only immune cells that are active at that time, may result in higher success with minimized immunosuppression or toxicities.