Figure 7.

Curdlan injection did not alter immune-related gene expressions in the central nervous system (CNS) during the acute and chronic phases of TMEV infection between the control and curdlan treatment groups. (A–D) Real-time PCR analyses of T cell-related and immune cell migration/infiltration-related genes in the brain 8 days p.i. (A, B) and in the spinal cord 5 weeks p.i. (C, D). (A, C) mRNA levels of Il17a, Ifng, Gzmb, Foxp3, Il10, and Igha. (B, D) mRNA levels of Vcam1, Icam1, Itga4, Itgb2, Cxcl2, Cxcl9, Cxcl0, and Cxcr3. Pgk1 expression was used as a housekeeping gene for normalization. Values are the mean + SEM of four mice per group. (E) Principal component analysis (PCA) separated TMEV-infected control and curdlan-treated mice as two distinct populations by the principal component (PC) 2 values. We conducted PCA, using 15 immunopathology data: neuropathology (demyelination, perivascular cuffing, meningitis, viral-antigen positive cells, damaged axons), antibody titers, clinical scores, and the disease onset day from the two groups 5 weeks p.i. Each group was composed of four mice. (F) Factor loading for PC2 showed that clinical scores and damaged axon numbers contributed to the PC2 distribution.