Fig. 1
Aging diminishes resistance of AO rats to EAE development. (a) Aged and young AO rats were immunized with rat spinal cord homogenate in complete Freund’s adjuvant and co-injected with Bordetella pertussis. The clinical course of EAE was evaluated daily. Neurological signs of EAE were scored as indicated in the section Methods. Thirteen rats from each group were followed over a 60-day-long follow-up period in a preliminary experiment, whereas 9 rats were sacrificed on the 16th d.p.i. (arrow in line graph) for analyses. Line graph indicates the daily neurological score of EAE in aged and young AO rats. The first numbers in the brackets indicate the number of rats with clinical EAE, whereas the second number (22) indicates the total number of immunized rats per group. (b) Scatter plot indicates the clinical score of EAE on the 16th d.p.i. in rats used for analyses. Horizontal lines within the scatters represent the mean values. (c) Bar graph indicates the total number of mononuclear cells retrieved from spinal cords of aged and young rats on the 16th d.p.i. Data represent mean values ± SEM (n = 9/group). Data shown are from one of two independent experiments with similar results. ***p < 0.001