Cytokines mouse protein studies

The intramuscular injection of naked pDNA has also been evaluated for therapy of EAE, a mouse model of multiple sclerosis. The disease is induced in mice by s.c. injection of myelin basic protein (MBP) or proteolipid protein (PLP). In a recent study, mice were injected i.m. with pDNA encoding either IL-4/IgG or TGF / 48 hours prior to each MBP injection (on days zero and seven) (Piccirillo and Prud -homme, 1999). The disease severity was 70% lower in the IL-4/IgG or TGF / -treated mice and the mean clinical scores were significantly reduced in both groups. In addition, the IL-4 and TGF -treated mice had significantly reduced CNS inflammation, reduced T cell proliferative responses to MBP and low levels of the Th 1 cytokines IL-12 and IFN7. Thus, the pDNA therapy appeared to shift the mice to a Th2 response, which was therapeutic and reduced the severity of the disease. 

The use of mouse models to look at the effects of individual genes on incubation time have proved very useful in confirming the role of proteins that have been implicated in prion disease from a range of different studies. Prion diseases are characterised by the absence of a classical inflammatory response however, atypical inflammation characterised by microglial activation is central and precedes neuronal death. Consequently, a number of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines have been investigated. 

To enhance the antitumor immunity, dendritic cell growth factor, Flt-3 ligand was combined with radiation therapy and there was greater induction of the abscopal effect compared with either treatment alone in certain tumor cell lines (Chakravarty etal. 1999 Demaria et al. 2004). Active variant of human macrophage inflammatory protein-la also induced abscopal effects by radiation in several mouse tumor models and the accumulation of CD8+ and CD4+ lymphocyte and NK cells was observed in non-irradiated tumor sites (Shiraishi et al. 2008). There have also been a number of studies that have shown that radiation combined with cytokine... 

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