Zahoor Insha, Mir Sajad, Giri Shailendra
Department of Neurology, Henry Ford Health, Detroit, MI 48202, USA.
bioRxiv. 2025 Mar 19:2023.12.25.573285. doi: 10.1101/2023.12.25.573285.
Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is a preclinical animal model widely used to study multiple sclerosis (MS). Blood-based cytokines and neural biomarkers are predictors of neurodegeneration, disease activity, and disability in patients with MS. However, understudied confounding factors cause variation in reports on EAE across animal strains/studies, limiting the utility of these biomarkers for predicting disease activity. In this study, we investigated blood-based analyte profiles, including neural markers (NFL and GFAP) and cytokines (IL-6, IL-17, IL-12p70, IL-10, and TNF-α), in two clinically distinct EAE models: relapsing-remitting (RR)-EAE and chronic-EAE. Ultrasensitive single-molecule array technology (SIMOA, Quanterix) was used to profile the analytes in blood plasma of mice at the acute, chronic, and progressive phases of disease. In both models, NFL was substantially increased during post-disease onset at the peak, chronic, and progressive phases, with pronounced increase in chronic-EAE. Leakage of GFAP into peripheral blood was also greater after disease onset in both EAE models, especially in the acute phase of chronic-EAE. Among all cytokines, only IL-10 had consistently lower levels in both EAE models throughout the course of disease. This study suggests NFL, GFAP, and IL-10 as potential translational predictors of disease activity in EAE, making them potential candidates for surrogate markers for preclinical testing of therapeutic interventions in animal models of MS.
实验性自身免疫性脑脊髓炎(EAE)是一种广泛用于研究多发性硬化症(MS)的临床前动物模型。基于血液的细胞因子和神经生物标志物是MS患者神经退行性变、疾病活动和残疾的预测指标。然而,研究不足的混杂因素导致不同动物品系/研究中关于EAE的报告存在差异,限制了这些生物标志物在预测疾病活动方面的效用。在本研究中,我们调查了两种临床特征不同的EAE模型:复发缓解型(RR)-EAE和慢性-EAE中基于血液的分析物谱,包括神经标志物(神经丝轻链蛋白(NFL)和胶质纤维酸性蛋白(GFAP))和细胞因子(白细胞介素-6(IL-6)、白细胞介素-17(IL-17)、白细胞介素-12p70、白细胞介素-10和肿瘤坏死因子-α(TNF-α))。使用超灵敏单分子阵列技术(SIMOA,Quanterix)对疾病急性、慢性和进展期小鼠血浆中的分析物进行分析。在两种模型中,NFL在疾病发作后的峰值、慢性和进展期均显著增加,在慢性-EAE中增加更为明显。在两种EAE模型中,疾病发作后GFAP在外周血中的泄漏也更多,尤其是在慢性-EAE的急性期。在所有细胞因子中,只有IL-10在两种EAE模型的整个病程中水平持续较低。本研究表明NFL、GFAP和IL-10是EAE疾病活动的潜在转化预测指标,使其成为MS动物模型中治疗干预临床前测试替代标志物的潜在候选者。