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Updated: Sep 20, 2026

Scoring Central Nervous System Inflammation, Demyelination, and Axon Injury in Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis
Published on: February 23, 2024
Glatiramer acetate (Copaxone) regulates nitric oxide and related cytokine secretion in experimental autoimmune
Basak Kayhan1, Rina Aharoni, Ruth Arnon
1Department of Immunology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, PO Box 26, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
Abstract:
Nitric oxide (NO) is an important mediator involved in the pathogenesis of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) and multiple sclerosis (MS). We examined the effect of glatiramer acetate (GA), an agent with suppressing effect on EAE and of therapeutic value for the treatment of MS, on the secretion of NO, as well as of the NO regulating cytokines. We observed that induction of EAE leads to 4-fold elevation in NO secretion and that treatment of the EAE mice by GA indeed leads to a significant reduction in the NO secretion by the splenocytes in response to the encephalitogen. A parallel decrease was observed in the secretion of the NO inducing cytokine IL-1beta. On the other hand, the secretion level of NO modulating cytokines IL-10 and IL-13 was significantly augmented. The correlation between these findings and the therapeutic effect of GA is discussed.
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