Figure 1.

Dietary supplementation with CLA ameliorates spontaneous CNS autoimmunity. (A–E) Breeding pairs and OSE offspring were fed with CLA-enriched or control (C1000) chow ad libitum. (B and C) Clinical scores are shown over 100 days from OSE^ctrl (n = 58) and OSE^CLA mice (n = 34). (B) Disease courses are illustrated as mean group score over time ± SEM. (C) Disease onset (score ≥ 1) is shown as percentage of healthy mice. (D–G) Immune cell infiltration within spinal cords of OSE^ctrl (n ≥ 9) and OSE^CLA mice (n = 10) was assessed via histology. (D) Representative spinal cord stainings, percentages of inflamed area of total white matter marked by (E) Mac3⁺ infiltrates, (F) total counts of Mac3⁺ lesions, and (G) CD3⁺ cells are shown. (H) CD4⁺ T cells derived from the CNS, inguinal lymph nodes or blood of OSE^ctrl (n ≥ 8) and OSE^CLA mice (n ≥ 5) were restimulated for cytokine analysis. Dot plots depict representative mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of cytokine expression shown as mean ± SD, whereas each dot represents one individual mouse. Statistics: (B) two-way ANOVA with Bonferroni correction; (C) log-ranked Mantel-Cox test (dotted lines indicate 95% confidence interval); (E–H) Mann-Whitney U-test. Scale bars = 200 µm.