Involvement of phosphodiesterases in autoimmune diseases

Mizrachi, Keren; Aricha, Revital; Feferman, Tali; Kela-Madar, Neta; Mandel, Ilana; Paperna, Tamar; Miller, Ariel; Ben-Nun, Avraham; Berrih-Aknin, Sonia; Souroujon, Miriam C.; Fuchs, Sara

doi:10.1016/j.jneuroim.2009.12.012

« Previous Next »Journal of Neuroimmunology
Volume 220, Issue 1 , Pages 43-51, 30 March 2010

Involvement of phosphodiesterases in autoimmune diseases

Keren Mizrachi
- Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
- The Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Revital Aricha
- Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Tali Feferman
- Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Neta Kela-Madar
- Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Ilana Mandel
- Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa, Israel
Tamar Paperna
- Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa, Israel
Ariel Miller
- Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa, Israel
- Carmel Medical Center, Haifa, Israel
Avraham Ben-Nun
- Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Sonia Berrih-Aknin
- CNRS, France
Miriam C. Souroujon
- Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
- Department of Natural Sciences, The Open University of Israel, Israel
Sara Fuchs
- Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
- Corresponding author. Tel.: +972 8 9342618; fax: +972 8 9344141.

Received 22 September 2009; received in revised form 28 December 2009; accepted 28 December 2009. published online 25 January 2010.

Abstract

We have previously shown that several phosphodiesterase (PDE) subtypes are up-regulated in muscles and lymph node cells (LNC) of rats with experimental autoimmune myasthenia gravis (EAMG). In the present study we investigated PDE expression during the course of EAMG and experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) and found that the up-regulated expression of selected PDE subtypes in both experimental models is correlated with disease severity. In EAMG, PDE expression is correlated also with muscle damage. A similar up-regulation of PDE was also observed in the respective human diseases, MG and multiple sclerosis (MS). Our findings suggest that change in PDE expression levels is a general phenomenon in autoimmune diseases and may also be used as a marker for disease severity.

Keywords: Phosphodiesterases (PDE), Myasthenia gravis (MG), Experimental autoimmune myasthenia gravis (EAMG), Experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE), Multiple sclerosis (MS)