TY  - JOUR
A1  - Rottlaender, Andrea
A1  - Kuerten, Stefanie
T1  - Stepchild or prodigy? Neuroprotection in multiple sclerosis (MS) research
JF  - International Journal of Molecular Sciences
N2  - Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disorder of the central nervous system (CNS) and characterized by the infiltration of immune cells, demyelination and axonal loss. Loss of axons and nerve fiber pathology are widely accepted as correlates of neurological disability. Hence, it is surprising that the development of neuroprotective therapies has been neglected for a long time. A reason for this could be the diversity of the underlying mechanisms, complex changes in nerve fiber pathology and the absence of biomarkers and tools to quantify neuroregenerative processes. Present therapeutic strategies are aimed at modulating or suppressing the immune response, but do not primarily attenuate axonal pathology. Yet, target-oriented neuroprotective strategies are essential for the treatment of MS, especially as severe damage of nerve fibers mostly occurs in the course of disease progression and cannot be impeded by immune modulatory drugs. This review shall depict the need for neuroprotective strategies and elucidate difficulties and opportunities.
KW  - experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis
KW  - white matter
KW  - lesions
KW  - remyelination
KW  - multiple sclerosis
KW  - regeneration
KW  - neuroprotection
KW  - degeneration
KW  - axonal damage
KW  - neurodegeneration
KW  - pathology
KW  - sodium channels
KW  - axonal injury
KW  - central nervous system
Y1  - 2015
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-148416
VL  - 16
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Rovituso, Damiano M.
A1  - Duffy, Catharina E.
A1  - Schroeter, Michael
A1  - Kaiser, Claudia C.
A1  - Kleinschnitz, Christoph
A1  - Bayas, Antonios
A1  - Elsner, Rebecca
A1  - Kuerten, Stefanie
T1  - The brain antigen-specific B cell response correlates with glatiramer acetate responsiveness in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis patients
JF  - Scientific Reports
N2  - B cells have only recently begun to attract attention in the immunopathology of multiple sclerosis (MS). Suitable markers for the prediction of treatment success with immunomodulatory drugs are still missing. Here we evaluated the B cell response to brain antigens in n = 34 relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS) patients treated with glatiramer acetate (GA) using the enzyme-linked immunospot technique (ELISPOT). Our data demonstrate that patients can be subdivided into responders that show brain-specific B cell reactivity in the blood and patients without this reactivity. Only in patients that classified as B cell responders, there was a significant positive correlation between treatment duration and the time since last relapse in our study. This correlation was GA-specific because it was absent in a control group that consisted of interferon-\(\beta\) (IFN-\(\beta\))-treated RRMS patients (n = 23). These data suggest that GA has an effect on brain-reactive B cells in a subset of patients and that only this subset benefits from treatment. The detection of brain-reactive B cells is likely to be a suitable tool to identify drug responders.
KW  - cortical pathology
KW  - natural history
KW  - disability
KW  - expression
KW  - antibodies
KW  - disease
KW  - lesions
KW  - trial
KW  - multiple sclerosis
Y1  - 2015
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-148172
VL  - 5
IS  - 14265
ER  -