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Isolating Central Nervous System Tissues and Associated Meninges for the Downstream Analysis of Immune cells
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Acute and prolonged complement activation in the central nervous system during herpes simplex encephalitis

Charlotta E Eriksson1, Marie Studahl2, Tomas Bergström1

  • 1Department of Infectious Diseases, Institute of Biomedicine, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Journal of Neuroimmunology
|May 29, 2016
PubMed

Herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE) is characterized by a pronounced inflammatory activity in the central nervous system (CNS). Here, we investigated the acute and prolonged complement system activity in HSE patients, by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) for numerous complement components (C). We found increased cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of C3a, C3b, C5 and C5a in HSE patients compared with healthy controls. C3a and C5a concentrations remained increased also compared with patient controls. Our results conclude that the complement system is activated in CNS during HSE in the acute phase, and interestingly also in later stages supporting previous reports of prolonged inflammation.

Keywords:
AnaphylatoxinsCentral nervous system infectionComplement activationHerpes simplex encephalitisHerpes simplex virus type 1

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