Figure 4.

ELISA of secreted neurotrophic factors. Rat anti-MBP or anti-Cop-1 T cells were cultured for 48 h with their specific antigen in stimulation medium. The T-cell supernatants were collected and subjected to sandwich ELISA. The histogram shows the concentration of secreted NTs in each sample. The amounts of nerve growth factor (NGF) and NT-4/5 were higher in the anti-MBP T cells than in the anti-Cop-1 T cells. NT-3 was found almost exclusively in T cells specific to MBP, whereas the amounts of BDNF secreted in the supernatants of Cop-1-stimulated T cells were significantly higher than in the supernatants of anti-MBP T cells. Representative data are shown (A). The mean ratios ± SD (from five independent experiments) of the amounts of BDNF or NT-3 secreted by anti-Cop-1 T cells to the amounts secreted by anti-MBP T cells are shown in B.