. DIAZEPAM EFFECT ON T LYMPHOCYTES IN A MODEL OF EXPERIMENTAL AUTOIMMUNE ENCEPHALOMYELITIS (EAE)

FERNÁNDEZ HURST, N.; GERMAN A. ROTH

Los Cocos

Congreso; LXI Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Inmunología (SAI).; 2013

Sociedad Argentina de Inmunología (SAI)

Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is an animal model that mimics many of the clinical and pathological features of the human disease, Multiple Sclerosis. In rats challenged for EAE we previously demonstrated that Diazepam treatment reduced the incidence and clinical signs of the disease. Also, Diazepam diminishes many immunological parameters such as DTH reaction, proliferation against the encephalitogenic myelin basic protein (MBP), and anti-MBP antibody production. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the cellular and molecular mechanism underlying the Diazepam effect on isolated T cells that it is known that are involved in cellular immune response during the development of the disease. The animals were sensitized with myelin in complete Freund?s adjuvant to induce EAE and sacrificed during the acute phase of the disease (12-14 days post induction). The mononuclear cells (MNC) were isolated from popliteal lymph nodes and the population of T lymphocytes was about 75% of the total cells. We evaluated the in vitro effect of Diazepam on cell viability, apoptosis induction, proliferation and cytokine production. Using a viability assay (MTT), we show that Diazepam does not have a toxic effect at least up to 25 μM (P