Fig. 5

Inflammatory response in CNS tissue and peripheral blood. No signs of CD3⁺ T cell infiltration or demyelination were seen in pre-diseased animals, whereas the EAE animals had massive T cell infiltrates (a, scale bar 500 μm) and noduli (a, insert, scale bar 50 μm) and areas of demyelination (b, indicated by two black rectangles, scale bar 500 μm). Concentrations of a wide variety of cytokines and chemokines in the plasma (c, n = 5–6/group) and brain (d, n = 6/group). In the plasma, a general upregulation was seen as a consequence of immunization with CFA, compared to PBS, whereas IFN-γ and IL-17 was increased further if spinal cord homogenate was present (7 dpi and EAE animals). In the brain, the chemokines Cxcl1, Ccl2, and Ccl20 were all increased in the 7 dpi animals, whereas IFN-γ and IL-17 were increased in the EAE animals, compared to the CFA 7 group. Mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, and ***p < 0.0001 indicates data significantly different from the CFA 7 animals