Selective Lipid Alterations during Experimental Allergic Encephalomyelitis — An Interpretation of the Changes

Abstract

Experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) is an autoimmune, paralytic disease that has been widely used as a model of human demyelinating diseases (Paterson, 1969). We have described selective changes of the glycosphingolipid content and presence of increased amounts of esterified cholesterol in the central nervous system (CNS) of rats in which EAE was induced by whole CNS homogenates. A striking initial observation in these studies was that, depending on the species or strain of animals in which EAE was induced, some of the lipid changes were not necessarily present simultaneously to the paralytic symptoms (Maggio et al., 1972; Maggio & Cumar, 1974; Vasan & Bachhawat, 1971). It is well known that the basic protein of CNS myelin is the specific antigen for inducing a paralytic disease essentially indistinguishable from EAE produced by injection of whole CNS and that other constituents of myelin possess antigenic properties (Rapport & Graf, 1965). Our approach was, therefore, to study the CNS lipid composition of animals sensitized with purified myelin basic protein (BP) as well as with other myelin components.