*MS Article* New Model To Help MS?

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Medical News Today Tue, 05 Sep 2006 6:10 PM PDT

A Beautiful New Model For MS

Main Category: Multiple Sclerosis News

Article Date: 05 Sep 2006 - 18:00pm (PDT)

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease that affects the cells of the

brain and spinal cord. MS can cause various symptoms, including

depression, pain, and impaired mobility. Although it is clear that MS

is caused by cells of the immune system inappropriately attacking the

cells of the brain and spinal cord, much remains unknown about the

disease. For example, what triggers the immune cells to attack; what

is the identity of the attacking cell(s); and what determines which

part of the brain is attacked? Answering these questions has been

hampered by the lack of a suitable animal model of MS.

Now, a good, new mouse model of a form of MS -- known both as

neuromyelitis optica (NMO) and Devic disease -- that only affects

eyesight, limb movement, and bladder and bowel control is described in

two independent papers to be published in the September issue of the

Journal of Clinical Investigation. Analysis of these mice indicated

that disease was caused by cooperation between two types of immune

cell known as B cells and T cells. The independent development of this

mouse model of NMO by s Holz and colleagues from the Max Planck

Institute for Neurobiology in Germany and Vijay Kuchroo and colleagues

from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston should enable researchers

to get more of a handle on the causes of both NMO and MS, thereby

providing new avenues of research for the design of therapeutics to

treat these debilitating diseases.

In an accompanying commentary, Ransohoff from the Cleveland

Clinic, Ohio, discusses why he believes that the mouse model of NMO

developed by these two groups will in fact yield more insight into the

mechanisms of MS than the mechanisms of NMO.

TITLE: Spontaneous opticospinal encephalomyelitis in a

double-transgenic mouse model of autoimmune T cell/B cell cooperation

AUTHOR CONTACT:

s Holz

Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology, sried, Germany.

E-mail: holz@....

Hartmut Wekerle

Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology, sried, Germany.

E-mail: hwekerle@....

View the PDF of this article at:

http://https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=28330

RELATED MANUSCRIPT

TITLE: Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein-specific T and B cells

cooperate to induce a Devic-like disease in mice

AUTHOR CONTACT:

Vijay K. Kuchroo

Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston,

Massachusetts, USA.

E-mail: vkuchroo@....

View the PDF of this article at:

http://https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=28334

ACCOMPANYING COMMENTARY

TITLE: A mighty mouse: building a better model of multiple sclerosis

AUTHOR CONTACT:

M. Ransohoff

Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

Email: ransohr@....

View the PDF of this article at:

http://https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=29834

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JCI table of contents: September 1, 2006

Contact: Honey

Journal of Clinical Investigation