Monkey virus like MS

Blair TC, Manoharan M, Rawlings-Rhea SD, Tagge I, Kohama SG, Hollister-Smith J, Ferguson B, Woltjer RL, Frederick MC, Pollaro J, Rooney WD, Sherman LS, Bourdette DN, Wong SW.
Immunopathology of Japanese macaque encephalomyelitis is similar to multiple sclerosis. J Neuroimmunol. 2016 Feb 15;291:1-10. 


Japanese macaque encephalomyelitis (JME) is an inflammatory demyelinating disease that occurs spontaneously in a colony of Japanese macaques (JM) at the Oregon National Primate Research Center. Animals with JME display clinical signs resembling multiple sclerosis (MS), and magnetic resonance imaging reveals multiple T2-weighted hyperintensities and gadolinium-enhancing lesions in the central nervous system (CNS). Here we undertook studies to determine if JME possesses features of an immune-mediated disease in the CNS. Comparable to MS, the CNS of animals with JME contain active lesions positive for IL-17, CD4+ T cells with Th1 and Th17 phenotypes, CD8+ T cells, and positive CSF findings.

There is a colony of monkeys in Portland Oregon that get a demyelinating disease. It occurs in about 5% of the monkies and they have found that this is caused by a Herpes-like virus. Is this the ultimate animal model to test out anti-viral strategies

Labels: