Some years ago, The Muller’s team discovered a phosphopeptide called P140, which proved to be protective in lupus, both in a severe murine model of the disease and in patients affected by this dramatic, yet poorly understood, autoimmune syndrome. A few years later, the team showed that P140 targets autophagy, a vital process influencing the cellular death/live balance, involved in the regulation of inflammation and in the biology of immune cells. P140 is the first peptide drug that targets chaperone-mediated autophagy selectively. The direct effect of P140 peptide on this form of autophagy was demonstrated in 2015 using in a unique in vitro system (transfected cells). One more step was achieved in 2020 in showing in lupus mice that in vivo, P140 corrects some alterations of lysosomes in spleen B lymphocytes and inhibits the lysosomal uptake of CMA substrates in liver cells.
