Fig. 1
MICCop reduce relapses of ongoing disease in remitting-relapsing EAE. A relapsing-remitting EAE was induced in female SJL/J mice at day 0 with injection of proteolipid peptide PLP139–151 in complete Freund’s adjuvant. Clinical signs were evaluated daily. For cellular treatment, SPCs were isolated from EAE animals, cultured in vitro o/n with or without 10 µg/mL glatiramer acetate (GA, Copaxone®, Cop). On the day of cell therapy, splenocytes were either treated with 50 µg/mL MMC or UV/C-irradiated with 25 mJ/cm2. During first remission, animals of treatment groups received 2 × 107 cells on each of three consecutive days (days 21–23): a MMC-treated SPCs (MICs; n = 7, dark grey diamonds), Cop-loaded and MMC-treated SPCs (MICCop; n = 7, black triangles) or PBS (control; n = 6, white squares); b Cop-loaded and UV/C-irradiated SPCs (UVC-SPCCop; n = 15, grey circles) or PBS (control; n = 15, white squares). Each panel shows the time course of the mean EAE score for the respective treatment group