Targeted ablation of oligodendrocytes induces axonal pathology independent of overt demyelination

The critical role of oligodendrocytes in producing and maintaining myelin that supports rapid axonal conduction in CNS neurons is well established. More recently, additional roles for oligodendrocytes have been posited, including provision of trophic factors and metabolic support for neurons. To investigate the functional consequences of oligodendrocyte loss, we have generated a transgenic mouse model of conditional oligodendrocyte ablation. In this model, oligodendrocytes are rendered selectively sensitive to exogenously administered diphtheria toxin (DT) by targeted expression of the diphtheria toxin receptor in oligodendrocytes. Administration of DT resulted in severe clinical dysfunction with an ascending spastic paralysis ultimately resulting in fatal respiratory impairment within 22 d of DT challenge. Pathologically, at this time point, mice exhibited a loss of ∼26% of oligodendrocyte cell bodies throughout the CNS. Oligodendrocyte cell-body loss was associated with moderate microglial activation, but no widespread myelin degradation. These changes were accompanied with acute axonal injury as characterized by structural and biochemical alterations at nodes of Ranvier and reduced somatosensory-evoked potentials. In summary, we have shown that a death signal initiated within oligodendrocytes results in subcellular changes and loss of key symbiotic interactions between the oligodendrocyte and the axons it ensheaths. This produces profound functional consequences that occur before the removal of the myelin membrane, i.e., in the absence of demyelination. These findings have clear implications for the understanding of the pathogenesis of diseases of the CNS such as multiple sclerosis in which the oligodendrocyte is potentially targeted

Generation and characterisation of a transgenic mouse model of inducible oligodendrocyte ablation

TypescriptCentre for Neuroscience, Florey Neuroscience InstitutesThesis (PhD) -- University of Melbourne, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, 2011Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-232

A unified cell biological perspective on axon-myelin injury.

Demyelination and axon loss are pathological hallmarks of the neuroinflammatory disorder multiple sclerosis (MS). Although we have an increasingly detailed understanding of how immune cells can damage axons and myelin individually, we lack a unified view of how the axon-myelin unit as a whole is affected by immune-mediated attack. In this review, we propose that as a result of the tight cell biological interconnection of axons and myelin, damage to either can spread, which might convert a local inflammatory disease process early in MS into the global progressive disorder seen during later stages. This mode of spreading could also apply to other neurological disorders.peerReviewe