Association of Regulatory T-Cell Expansion With Progression of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Study of Humans and a Transgenic Mouse Model.

Importance: Neuroinflammation appears to be a key modulator of disease progression in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and thereby a promising therapeutic target. The CD4+Foxp3+ regulatory T-cells (Tregs) infiltrating into the central nervous system suppress neuroinflammation and promote the activation of neuroprotective microglia in mouse models of ALS. To our knowledge, the therapeutic association of host Treg expansion with ALS progression has not been studied in vivo.

Accelerated aging exacerbates a pre-existing pathology in a tau transgenic mouse model.

Age is a critical factor in the prevalence of tauopathies, including Alzheimer's disease. To observe how an aging phenotype interacts with and affects the pathological intracellular accumulation of hyperphosphorylated tau, the tauopathy mouse model pR5 (expressing P301L mutant human tau) was back-crossed more than ten times onto a senescence-accelerated SAMP8 background to establish the new strain, SApT. Unlike SAMP8 mice, pR5 mice are characterized by a robust tau pathology particularly in the amygdala and hippocampus.