Diseased oligodendrocytes

A Karolinska Institute team has identified subsets of oligodendrocyte lineage cells that may trigger T cell immunity in multiple sclerosis and proposed the cells as new disease targets. The findings suggest the myelin-producing cells are not passive victims of the immune system, but instead actively modulate it in MS.

In the study, published in Nature Medicine in November, the researchers used single-cell RNA sequencing and clustering analysis to identify populations of oligodendrocytes and oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) in the spinal cords of the experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) mouse model of MS that were absent from the spinal cords of normal mice. The two oligodendrocyte populations from the MS mice expressed high levels of major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC I) and MHCII genes...