T-cell trafficking competence is required for CNS invasion

T-cell invasion of the CNS is critical for the induction of a variety of autoimmune mediated neuronal diseases. We utilized blood–brain barrier (BBB) mediated exclusion of anti-CD4 antibody to define populations of encephalitogenic T-cells recovered from mouse CNS preparations as either CNS invasive or non-invasive. This separation of cells allowed flow cytometric examination of the kinetics of encephalitogenic T-cell entry past the BBB. Further experiments examined the relative contribution of EAE inflammatory conditioning of the BBB to the kinetics of T-cell adherence and migration into the CNS. Inflammatory conditioning was found to have no effect on accumulation of T-cells at the vascular interface of the BBB, but was found to increase the entry of adoptively transferred T-cells into the CNS following their initial adherence to the BBB.