FIGURE 1.

APC suppressed the progression of EAE, both clinically and histopathologically. (A) The impact of APC on EAE clinical severity. Once mice acquired a clinical score of 2 they received daily injections of vehicle (EAE) or APC (EAE + APC) as indicated by the arrow, and clinical scores subsequently evaluated at daily intervals. All points represent the mean ± SD (n = 19 mice per group in 3 separate experiments). Note that compared to vehicle controls, after 4 days treatment, APC suppressed the progression of clinical score at all time-points for the duration of the experiment. *p < 0.05. (B) Frozen sections of lumbar spinal cord taken from disease-free, EAE-vehicle control or EAE + APC mice at the peak phase of EAE were stained for the inflammatory leukocyte marker CD45 (AlexaFluor-488) and fluoromyelin-red (FM). Images were captured in the ventral region as depicted by the red box in the schematic image. Scale bar = 100 μm. (C,D) Quantification of CD45 (C) and fluoromyelin (D) fluorescent signal under disease-free (D–F), or at peak phase of EAE in mice receiving vehicle (EAE) or APC (EAE + APC). Results are expressed as the mean ± SEM (n = 4 mice/group). Note that APC markedly suppressed CD45 + leukocyte infiltration and protected against demyelination. *p < 0.05.