Central nervous system autoimmunity demyelination

Raine, C. S., Cannella, B., Duijvestijn, A. M., and Cross, A. H., Homing to central nervous system vasculature by antigen-specific lymphocytes. II. Lymphocyte/endo-thelial cell adhesion during the initial stages of autoimmune demyelination, Lab. Invest., 63, 476, 1990. 

A very interesting example may be the use of Bowman-Birk Inhibitor (BBI) from soybeans in the treatment of multiple sclerosis. Proteases generated during inflammation are involved in the induction of tissue damage during inflammatory demyelination in the central nervous system. Both in vitro and ex vivo, BBI inhibited myelin basic protein-specific proliferation of lymph node cells. BBI reduced the activity of matrix metalloproteinase-2 and -9 in spleen cell supernatants and was detected in the central nervous system of treated rats. BBI suppresses experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, it can be administered orally, and it is safe and relatively inexpensive. It may have a therapeutic role in patients with MS (Gran et al., 2006). 

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