Role of the bone marrow in the maintenance of pathogenic or protective CD4+T-cell subsets in multiple sclerosis

The project entitled:”Role of the bone marrow in the maintenance of pathogenic or protective CD4+T-cell subsets in multiple sclerosis” aim to study pathogenic myelin-reactive T-cells in the relapsing-remitting PLP/EAE mouse model, the proliferative state of pathogenic or protective T-cells in the bone marrow at different phases of the disease. Moreover, they propose to study the bone marrow/CNS trafficking of T cells during the remission and the secondary relapse upon adoptive transfer of GFP+ PLP-specific T cells. In addition, the T-cell compartment of humanised mice, which are engrafted with hematopoetic stem cells from donors carrying the MS-associated risk allele, HLA-DR15, will be analysed. They also propose to investigate the impact of EBV infection on T-cell properties, like subset composition, quiescence, tissue residency and cytokine profiles in the bone marrow. Furthermore, unique bone marrow samples from MS patients will be analysed by multi-dimensional flow cytometry to characterize the T-cell compartment ex vivo, with a focus on T-cells that respond to MS-relevant antigens