Autoimmune maintenance and neuroprotection of the central nervous system

The genesis of immune privilege high in the evolutionary tree suggests that immune privilege is necessary, if not advantageous for the progressive development of the CNS. Upon reaching a certain degree of complexity, it seems as if the CNS was obliged to restrain the immune system from penetrating the blood-brain barrier. CNS autoimmunity against myelin proteins is known to be a contributory factor in the pathophysiology of multiple sclerosis and in the animal model of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) (Wekerle, 1993). Such autoimmunity has therefore been regarded as detrimental and hence obviously undesirable. However, recent findings in our laboratory suggest that T-cell autoimmunity to CNS self-antigens (Moalem et al., 1999), if expressed at the right time and the right place, can do much good in the CNS. We shall review the experiments briefly, and then discuss their implications for our understanding of immune privilege and CNS maintenance after injury.