Therapeutic Remyelination Strategies in a Novel Model of Multiple Sclerosis: Japanese Macaque Encephalomyelitis.

摘要

The major goal of this project was to characterize an encephalomyelitis that occurs spontaneously in a colony of Japanese macaques housed at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. We determined that this disease, Japanese macaque encephalomyelitis (JME), can be induced by an apparently unique virus found in this colony (Japanese macaque rhadinovirus; JMRV) but only in animals belonging to families of previously affected animals. We also determined that animals with certain major histocompatibility complex (MHC) polymorphisms are more likely to be affected than others, consistent with findings in humans with multiple sclerosis. Finally, we characterized both spontaneous and induced JME lesions using a combination of magnetic imaging and histopathological approaches, and found that infection with JMRV leads to demyelination, axonopathy, reactive astrogliosis and hyaluronan accumulation in affected white matter. All together, our findings indicate that JME is a unique and powerful non-human primate model of multiple sclerosis.