Lack of neurite growth in optic nerve explants in vitro has been suggested to be due to nonpermissive substrate properties of higher vertebrate central nervous system (CNS) white matter. We have searched for surface components in CNS white matter, which would prevent neurite growth. CNS, but not peripheral nervous system (PNS) myelin fractions from rat and chick were highly nonpermissive substr...

The interleukin-6 (IL-6) family of cytokines is thought to be involved in the development and regeneration of peripheral nerves; however, their roles in myelination remain unclear. In this study, we examined the effects of IL-6 on the expression of genes for compact myelin proteins using Schwann cell cultures prepared by multiple explantation of adult rat sciatic nerves. In semi-quantitative re...

A specific antibody to myelin basic protein has been used to localize the protein in developing rat oligodendroglia and myelin. Basic protein is found in the oligodendroglial cytoplasm of anterior commissures of 5- and 7-day old rats before the beginning of myelination. Staining of basic protein in oligodendroglia increases, becoming most intense during early myelination; it decreases during ra...

The recently determined structure of protein zero, P0, the most abundant peripheral nerve myelin protein, provides new insights into the molecular structure of myelin and potential disease mechanisms in hereditary peripheral neuropathies.

Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody associated disease (MOGAD) is an inflammatory demyelinating disorder caused by the development of immunoglobulin G autoantibody targeting MOG, which expressed exclusively on outer surface myelin sheath and plasma membrane oligodendrocyte. MOGAD can present in different clinical spectrum including acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), optic neu...

T cell-mediated destruction of the myelin sheath causes inflammatory damage of the CNS in multiple sclerosis (MS). The major T and B cell responses in MS patients who are HLA-DR2 (about two-thirds of MS patients) react to a region between residues 84 and 103 of myelin basic protein (1 ). The crystal structure of HLA-DR2 complexed with myelin basic protein(84-102) confirmed that Lys(91) is the m...

The central nervous system (CNS) of terrestrial vertebrates underwent a prominent molecular change when proteolipid protein (PLP) replaced P0 protein as the most abundant protein of CNS myelin. However, PLP did not replace P0 in peripheral nervous system (PNS) myelin. To investigate the possible consequences of a PLP to P0 shift in PNS myelin, we engineered mice to express PLP instead of P0 in ...

Previous studies from this laboratory have shown that CNS myelin is phagocytized and metabolized by cultured rat macrophages to a much larger extent when myelin is pretreated with serum containing antibodies to myelin constituents than when it is left untreated or pretreated with non-specific serum. In this study the effect of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from rabbits with experimental allergic en...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system of presumed autoimmune etiology. One of the best animal models of demyelinating diseases is experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), which can be induced in a variety of animals by injection of a target antigen such as myelin basic protein (MBP). The immune responses against the target amino acids caus...

The cellular and subcellular distributions of mRNAs encoding three myelin-specific proteins--myelin basic protein (MBP), proteolipid protein (PLP), and Po protein--were studied in tissue sections of developing rat nervous systems by in situ hybridization. The developmental appearance of these mRNAs closely paralleled the appearance of the proteins they encode as determined by immunocytochemistr...