Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic relapsing disease of the central nervous system (CNS) in which immune processes are believed to play a major role. To date, there is no reliable method by which to characterize the immune processes and their changes associated with different forms of MS and disease progression. We performed antigen microarray analysis to characterize patterns of antibody rea...

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic, auto-immune multi-system disorder. About seventy to ninety percent of all cases of SLE occur in women. Although the disease is common in black young women residing in Europe and North America, it is reputed to be a very rare diagnosis in West Africa. A case of atypical presentation of SLE in a male in West Africa is presented.

The nervous and immune systems have evolved in parallel from the early bilaterians, in which innate immunity and a central nervous system (CNS) coexisted for the first time, to jawed vertebrates and the appearance of adaptive immunity. The CNS feeds from, and integrates efferent signals in response to, somatic and autonomic sensory information. The CNS receives input also from the periphery abo...

thrombin is a multifunctional enzyme which has key roles in coagulation cascade and inflammatory events. the pro-inflammatory functions of thrombin occur by different mechanisms including increasing mast cell degranulation, up-regulating the expression of cell adhesion molecules (cams) and promoting the secretion of inflammatory chemokines and cytokines. dysregulated signaling functions of thro...

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of autoantibodies directed against an epitope of the glutamate/N-methyl-D-aspartic acid (NMDA) receptor subunit NR2A (which is highly expressed in human brain) in the sera of lupus patients, and to investigate the possible correlation of these antibodies with clinical and serological manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). METHODS Sera were ...

Neurological involvement is one of the most devastating complications of the disease, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). To understand the effect of the drugs, cyclophosphamide (CY) and prednisolone (PD) on CNS manifestations, the New Zealand Black/White (NZB/W) lupus mice, were given a cocktail of both drugs by intraperitoneal injections daily from 22 to 44 weeks of age. The treatment prolong...

Neurological involvement is one of the most devastating complications of the disease, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). To understand the effect of the drugs, cyclophosphamide (CY) and prednisolone (PD) on CNS manifestations, the New Zealand Black/White (NZB/W) lupus mice, were given a cocktail of both drugs by intraperitoneal injections daily from 22 to 44 weeks of age. The treatment prolong...

INTRODUCTION The tumour necrosis factor (TNF) family ligands BAFF (B-cell activating factor of TNF family) and APRIL (a proliferation-inducing ligand) are essential for B-cell survival and function. Elevated serum levels of BAFF and APRIL have been reported earlier in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Since autoantibody formation in the central nervous system (CNS) is a distinct...

To determine the effect of the tolerogenic peptide hCDR1 on hippocampal neurogenesis, we treated SLE-afflicted (NZBxNZW)F1 mice with hCDR1 (once a week for 10weeks). The treatment resulted in the up-regulation of neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus and restored the NeuN immunoreactivity in brain hippocampi of the mice in association with increased gene expression of IGF-1, NGF and BDNF. Furthermo...