Recent studies using murine animal model systems indicate that clinical progression of autoimmune disease may be due to the sequential accumulation of neoautoreactivity characterized by extensive plasticity of self recognition. In the present study, we addressed the question of whether a similar paradigm of self recognition is implicated in the development of multiple sclerosis (MS), a demyelin...

Administration of autoantigens under conditions that induce type 2 immunity frequently leads to protection from T cell-mediated autoimmune diseases. Such treatments, however, are inherently linked to the induction of IgG1 Abs and to the risk of triggering anaphylactic reactions. We studied the therapeutic benefit vs risk of immune deviation in experimental allergic encephalomyelitis of SJL mice...

We previously generated a panel of T helper cell 1 (Th1) clones specific for an encephalitogenic peptide of myelin proteolipid protein (PLP) peptide 139–151 (HSLGKWLGHPDKF) that induces experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) upon adoptive transfer. In spite of the differences in their T cell receptor (TCR) gene usage, all these Th1 clones required W144 as the primary and most critical ...

Oligodendroglia growth factor (OGF) is a 16-kDa soluble protein produced by neuronal cell lines. This factor, when incubated with brain glia in culture, selectively stimulates growth of oligodendroglia, the myelin-producing cells of the CNS. OGF infused into the cerebral cortex of the adult rat accelerates the production of myelin proteins as shown by increased specific activity of the myelin e...

Little is known about the contributors and physiological responses to white matter hypoperfusion in the human brain. We previously showed the ratio of myelin-associated glycoprotein to proteolipid protein 1 in post-mortem human brain tissue correlates with the degree of ante-mortem ischaemia. In age-matched post-mortem cohorts of Alzheimer's disease (n = 49), vascular dementia (n = 17) and cont...

The lactoperoxidase-catalyzed iodination technique was utilized to incorporate radioactive iodine into membrane proteins which lie on the outer surface of the myelin sheath. An intact, myelinated nerve bundle, the dorsal column of the cat spinal cord, was employed. The enzymatically iodinated proteins were identified by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and the specific radioactivity was det...

Recent results suggest that membrane proteins are delivered to the myelin sheath of an oligodendrocyte on rafts with a distinctive lipid composition. The major intrinsic membrane protein of myelin, proteolipid protein, interacts with rafts in oligodendrocytes but not with the different rafts found in other cell types.

Hydrophobic compounds influenced the accuracy of the radioimmunoassay for myelin basic protein when lipids (stearic acid, phosphatidylcholine, cholesterol, cerebroside, sulfatide, or GM1 ganglioside) or proteolipids (white-matter proteolipid apoprotein, kidney proteolipid apoproteins, or heart proteolipid apoproteins) were added to a known amount of basic protein and the samples assayed. All of...