Development of bionic invasion membrane for the study of multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease and leads to many inflammations. Cause of this disease is autoreactive T cells invade the blood-brain-barrier and attack the myelin sheath. Because MS infringes upon young human and has gradual loss of bodily functions, the disease has a burden on society and economy. Traditional treatment is to use immune-suppressant, but it has many side effects. Currently, the most effective treatment of MS is to use Natalizumab. Target molecule of this agent is α4-integrin of T cells. The mechanism is to prevent invasion of activated lymphocytes across the blood-brain-barrier. However, this agent affects the overall immune response and easily generates side effects of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML). Transwall systems are often used to investigate cell invasion, but there is no specific protein immobilizing on the isolation membrane of these systems. In this work, we have successfully developed a bionic invasion membrane for the study of MS. Different chemokines were applied to the system for the demonstration of drug screening application. The bionic invasion membrane was a PP/PTEE membrane coated with VCAM-1 protein. Jurkat T cell was used to evaluate the feasibility of using the membrane for the study of MS. Results indicated that the invasion ability of T cells was reduced by VCAM-1 protein. The current work provides bionic invasion membrane for the study of MS in vitro.