Biological activity of glatiramer acetate on Treg and anti-inflammatory monocytes persists for more than 10years in responder multiple sclerosis patients.

Glatiramer acetate (GA) is a widely used treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS), with incompletely defined mechanism of action. Short-term studies suggested its involvement in the modulation of anti-inflammatory cytokines and regulatory T cells (Treg), while long-term effect is still unknown. To investigate this aspect, we analyzed by flow-cytometry peripheral-blood Treg, natural killer (NK), CD4 and CD8 T-cells and anti-inflammatory CD14+CD163+ monocytes from 37 healthy donor and 90 RRMS patients divided in untreated, treated with GA for 12months and from 34 to 192months. While NK, CD4 and CD8 T-cells did not show any significant differences among groups over time, we demonstrated that GA increased the anti-inflammatory monocytes and restored the Treg level in both GA-treated groups. Both these effects are a characteristic of responder patients and are observed not just in short-term but even after as long as a decade of GA treatment.

Gold: not just jewelry .

Plain language summary From jewels and coinage to anticancer and antiviral agents, the peculiar 'soft' character as well as physicochemical, redox and ligand exchange properties of gold can be exploited to design novel bioactive complexes, which may open up new perspectives to the development of drugs for therapeutic and diagnostic applications.

From jewels and coinage to anticancer and antiviral agents, the peculiar 'soft' character as well as physicochemical, redox and ligand exchange properties of gold can be exploited to design novel bioactive complexes, which may open up new perspectives to the development of drugs for therapeutic and diagnostic applications.

Immunomodulatory Effect of Pregnancy on Leukocyte Populations in Patients With Multiple Sclerosis: A Comparison of Peripheral Blood and Decidual Placental Tissue.

Pregnancy is a naturally occurring disease modifier of multiple sclerosis (MS) associated with a substantial reduction in relapse rate. To date, attempts to explain this phenomenon have focused on systemic maternal immune cell composition, with contradictory results. To address this matter, we compared the immunomodulatory effects of pregnancy on five leukocyte populations (i.e., CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, CD4+CD127-CD25high regulatory T cells, CD56brightCD16- NK cells, and CD14+CD163+ monocytes) in peripheral blood from different cohorts of MS patients and healthy women at different times of gestation, as well as in decidual samples from the placenta of MS patients and healthy women collected after delivery. For the first time to our knowledge, we observed that the frequency of these cell populations in the decidua is not different between MS patients and healthy women, suggesting that a physiological immune regulation may occur at the fetal-maternal interface. In peripheral blood, however, contrary to healthy women, in MS patients cell frequencies were not significantly altered by gestation. In particular, CD8+ T cells did not show differences between groups. CD4+ T cells were higher in non-pregnant MS compared to healthy women, while during pregnancy they remained constant in MS and increased in healthy women. Regulatory T cells were higher in non-pregnant controls compared to MS women, while the difference was reduced during gestation due to the decrease of regulatory T cell levels in healthy women. CD14+CD163+ monocytes did not show differences between groups. CD56brightCD16- NK cells were not significantly different in non-pregnant MS compared to controls and increased in healthy women during gestation. In conclusion, our findings support the hypothesis that disease amelioration in MS patients during pregnancy may be due to a modulation of the immune cells functional activity rather than their frequency. Further studies exploring functional changes of these cells would be crucial to bring light into the complex mechanisms of pregnancy-induced tolerance and autoimmunity overall.