Blood online
Home About Blood Authors Subscriptions Permission Advertising Public Access contact us
 

 
Advanced
Current Issue
First Edition
Future Articles
Archives
Submit to Blood
Search
American Society of Hematology
Meeting Abstracts
Email Alerts
 Blood, 1 January 2009, Vol. 113, No. 1, pp. 204-213.
Prepublished online as a Blood First Edition Paper on September 29, 2008; DOI 10.1182/blood-2008-05-156042.

This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
blood-2008-05-156042v1
113/1/204    most recent
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Right arrow Rights and Permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Barnard, A. L.
Right arrow Articles by Boyd, R. L.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Barnard, A. L.
Right arrow Articles by Boyd, R. L.
Related Collections
Right arrow Immunobiology
Right arrow Transplantation
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?

arrow to previous article Previous Article  |  Table of Contents  |  Next Article next article arrow

TRANSPLANTATION

Androgen depletion increases the efficacy of bone marrow transplantation in ameliorating experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis

Adele L. Barnard1, Ann P. Chidgey1, Claude C. Bernard1,*, and Richard L. Boyd1,*

1 Monash Immunology and Stem Cell Laboratories (MISCL), Monash University, Victoria, Australia

Bone marrow transplantation (BMT) potentially represents a novel therapy for the amelioration and even cure for multiple sclerosis (MS). It has important advantages over immunosuppressive drug treatments because, while effecting broad-based ablation of the immune system and autoreactive cells, it provides an important means for overcoming the resultant immunodeficiency, while possibly restoring self-tolerance. However, both of these benefits are predicated on a functional thymus that undergoes profound age-induced atrophy from puberty. Reversal of thymic atrophy has been achieved by several procedures, including removal of sex steroids by surgical or chemical (LHRH agonist) castration. Using a murine model of MS, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), we combined BMT with androgen depletion to induce immune regeneration, and investigated the kinetics of increased thymic function on immune reconstitution and disease reduction. We show that androgen depletion significantly increased the efficacy of BMT to ameliorate the clinical signs of EAE while concurrently restoring the periphery with increased naive and regulatory lymphocytic populations. Upon rechallenge, mice with a regenerated thymus had a slower onset of clinical symptoms compared with mice undergoing BMT only. These results suggest that thymic regeneration strategies may be used as a complement to conventional BMT protocols for the treatment of MS.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?




click for free articles
home about blood authors subscriptions permissions advertising public access contact us
  Copyright © 2009 by American Society of Hematology         Online ISSN: 1528-0020