Table 1.
Summary of demographic and clinical data of MS cases, brain sample characteristics, and type and number of laser-cut immune infiltrates analyzed in this study
| MS case/no. of brain tissue blocks analyzed | Sex/age at death | Disease duration (years) | Cause of death | Postmortem delay (hours) | RNA integrity number | Laser-cut samples used for gene expression analysis | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. of meningeal infiltrates | No. of WM perivascular infiltrates | No. of total infiltrates | ||||||
| MS79/3 | F/49 | 21 | Bronchopneumonia, MS | 7 | 6–7 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| MS92/3 | F/37 | 17 | MS | 26 | 6.1–7.8 | 5 | 8 | 13 |
| MS121/2 | F/49 | 14 | MS | 24 | 6.8, 7.0 | n.a. | 7 | 7 |
| MS154/2 | F/34 | 11 | Pneumonia | 12 | 6.4, 8.3 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| MS160/2 | F/44 | 15 | Aspiration pneumonia, MS | 18 | 6.0, 6.4 | 2 | n.a. | 2 |
| MS176/1 | M/37 | 27 | Intestinal obstruction, MS | 12 | 6.7 | 1 | 4 | 5 |
| MS180/3 | F/44 | 18 | MS | 9 | 6.4–6.7 | 7 | 9 | 16 |
| MS234/3 | F/39 | 15 | Pulmonary embolism, pneumonia | 15 | 7.4–7.9 | 6 | n.a. | 6 |
| MS330/1 | F/59 | 40 | Pneumonia, MS | 21 | 7.8 | 2 | n.a. | 2 |
| MS402/1 | M/46 | 20 | Bronchopneumonia, MS | 12 | 7.2 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| MS407/3 | F/44 | 19 | Septicaemia, pneumonia | 22 | 6.2–6.7 | 7 | 4 | 11 |
| No. of laser-cut samples analyzed | 36 | 39 | 75 | |||||
All brain tissues analyzed were from persons who died during the progressive phase of MS. The samples used for gene expression analysis include 36 samples from the meninges of 10 MS cases, of which 25 were B cell follicle-like structures and 11 were diffuse infiltrates; 39 samples from the white matter of 8 MS cases, of which 13 perivascular infiltrates were isolated from active lesions, 8 from chronic active lesions, 3 from areas of rarefied myelin with activated microglia, and 15 from non-demyelinated areas with activated microglia
n.a. not available