Introduction: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative autoimmune disease that worsens with age. Here, we examined the influence of age on passive experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (P-EAE), a model to study MS, using young and mature adult 2D2 transgenic donor mice to induce pathology in WT C57BL6/J mice.
Methods: Lymphocytes from young adult (i.e., 10-week-old) or mature adult (i.e., 6-month-old) transgenic donor mice were characterized by flow cytometry prior to injection of cultured leukocytes into adult female WT recipient mice, with a special focus on transgenic T cell phenotypes.
Results: Our findings show age-dependent changes in memory T cell phenotypes correlated with more severe clinical and histological disease when donor cells originated from young as compared to mature adult mice.
Conclusion: Not only do these results demonstrate that the age of the 2D2 transgenic donor mice is critical in establishing P-EAE, but the differential effects might also identify age-dependent factors that contribute to EAE and perhaps MS.
Keywords: Aging; Memory T cells; Multiple sclerosis; Passive experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis; Th1.
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by S. Karger AG, Basel.