More than one million people across the United States live with multiple sclerosis (MS), a disease that affects the brain, optic nerves, and spine. MS is characterized by overwhelming fatigue, muscle spasms, and vision problems, which can flare up and then subside over days, months, or even years. Studying the underlying damage to the nervous system is key to identifying new treatment paradigms for MS. A new study published in Nature Communications titled, “A comparative transcriptomic analysis of mouse demyelination models and multiple sclerosis lesions,” compares two prevailing models, cuprizone (CPZ) and lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC), for the study of myelin loss and regeneration in an MS mouse model. Katrina Adams, PhD, Gallagher Assistant Professor at University of Notre Dame, studies the role of the loss and regeneration of myelin on MS progression. As a fatty substance protects nerve cells, myelin envelopes the axons of the brain as they route the electrical signals that carry information throughout the nervous system. The damage and swelling that follow myelin loss in MS form distinct “lesions,” which vary in size, number and location in the nervous system. “Our analysis of these two models of myelin loss and regeneration provides a road map based on robust scientific evidence that we hope will advance the study of MS and related diseases,” said Adams. While both CPZ and LPC models degrade myelin, the timeline and localization of myelin loss varies. CPZ causes widespread loss of myelin over several weeks while LPC induces a lesion within days. This new research, which was funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, points to specific scenarios in which one model is better suited, depending…
