Therefore, it was unexpected that mice genetically deficient in CXCR3 or CXCL10 have been shown to be at least as susceptible to EAE as their immunocompetent counterparts [15-17]. Furthermore, in several studies, antagonism of CXCR3 or neutralization of CXCL10 in myelin-immunized wild-type (WT) mice either had no clinical impact or, paradoxically, exacerbated EAE [10, 18, 19]. In

published studies on the role of CXCR3/ELR− CXC chemokines in murine EAE, disease has primarily been induced via active immunization with myelin antigens emulsified in complete Freund’s adjuvant (CFA). Mice primed in this manner generate a heterogeneous learn more pool of memory T cells including IFN-γ-producing Th1 and IL-17-producing Th17 cells [20]. There is also considerable diversity in the cytokine profiles of myelin-specific T cells isolated from the blood and cerebrospinal fluid of individuals with MS [21, 22]. We have previously shown that Th1 and Th17 cells specific selleck chemical for the same myelin epitope induce clinically indistinguishable forms of EAE by invoking the expression of distinct patterns of proinflammatory mediators and

chemokines in CNS tissues [23]. Consequently, Th1- and Th17-mediated EAE respond differently to individual immunomodulatory therapies [21, 24, 25]. In addition, there is accumulating evidence that Th1 and Th17 cells employ distinct homing molecules to cross the blood–brain barrier [13, 23, 26]. Therefore, the susceptibility of actively immunized mice to EAE in the absence of functional CXCR3 interactions could be secondary to the compensatory action of encephalitogenic Th17 cells, which have been reported to accumulate in the CNS via a CCR6/CCL20-dependent pathway [26]. We speculated that, under conditions where immune responses are more uniform and highly polarized, the relative importance of CXCR3/CXC chemokine interactions might vary based on the Th bias of the peripheral autoreactive T-cell repertoire. In the current study,

we used an adoptive transfer EAE model to investigate whether CXCR3 and/or its ligands are viable therapeutic targets for the treatment of inflammatory demyelinating disease mediated by a Th1-skewed Calpain effector cell population. Consistent with previous reports [15-17], we found that CXCR3−/− and CXCL10−/− mice on a C57BL/6 background readily succumb to EAE induced by active immunization with myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG)35–55 in CFA. Furthermore, disease incidence, the clinical course, and degree of CNS infiltration did not differ significantly between knockout mice and their WT counterparts (Fig. 1A, B, E, and F). Splenocytes and draining LN (dLN) cells harvested from MOG-immunized WT, CXCR3−/− and CXCL10−/− mice mounted comparable IFN-γ and IL-17 recall responses upon antigenic challenge ex vivo (Fig. 1C and G).