ABSTRACT
Accumulating evidence suggests that neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer disease (AD) or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies might be tractable by immunointervention. Transgenic mice developing AD show improvement following passive or active immunization against the Aß peptide. T-less mice reconstituted with Prion protein-primed T cells and challenged every other week with peptides, were sacrificed 3 months after transfer for histological examination of brain and spinal chord together with controls reconstituted with naive T cells. The fact that infiltrates are more florid with T cells boosted with peptide 158-187 compared with peptide 98-127, clearly suggests that it will be important to identify the protective peptides and in order to find out whether they are different from those which are hazardous. It may turn out that the most effective ones will also be the most harmful in terms of autoimmunity. Clinicians would then be confronted to a dilemma similar to the one presently posed by AD.
