Fig. 4

Hypoxia treatment attenuated the inflammation in EAE. Mice were immunized with MOG peptide and housed in hypoxic chambers at day 0. Spinal cord sections were prepared at the peak disease and stained with H&E to visualize infiltrating cells (×2) (a). Results are representative of three mice per group and repeated at least twice. b Total numbers of myeloid cells were isolated from the spinal cords at peak disease as described in the “Materials and methods” section. Significant differences when compared to control mice are denoted with asterisks (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001), while the pound sign denotes the significant differences between hypoxia-exposed and normoxic EAE mice (^# p < 0.05). However, the MOG-induced proliferative capacity of splenocytes was not affected by mild hypoxia, when determined through [3H]-thymidine incorporation and counted by using a scintillation beta-counter as mentioned in the “Materials and methods” section (c). The results are presented as the mean ± SD of cpm values from triplicate cultures. Significant differences between the control group and the stimulated cells are denoted with asterisks (***p < 0.001)