The mechanism of inhibition of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis in the rat by monoclonal antibody against CD4

Lewis rats with actively induced or passively transferred experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) were treated with a monoclonal antibody (MAb) which binds to the CD4 antigen of rat helper/inducer T cells. Actively immunized animals treated at the first onset of clinical signs experienced only a mild form of the disease and rapidly recovered while the majority of those treated prophylactically never showed clinical signs of EAE. Passively transferred EAE was also completely inhibited with anti-CD4 MAb. In treated animals which exhibited only mild clinical signs of EAE, spinal cord and cerebellar leukocyte infiltrates were quite similar to those in untreated rats but where anti-CD4 MAb treatment completely prevented clinical EAE, histological signs were minimal or absent. Like Lewis rats which have recovered naturally from EAE, those treated with anti-CD4 MAb were both resistant to a secondary challenge with myelin basic protein and harboured potential encephalitogenic cells which were capable of transferring disease to recipient rats. Disease in these recipients was, however, of much greater severity than that experienced by animals receiving cells from naturally recovered (untreated) donors. These data demonstrate that administration of anti-CD4 MAb to rats can prevent EAE by a mechanism which does not ablate the encephalitogenic CD4+ cells or prevent the development of resistance to EAE but which may inhibit the disease by preventing the function of already activated effector cells.