Growth inhibitory effect of cerebrospinal fluid of multiple sclerosis patients on HFF2 cells

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease characterized by demyelination of the central nervous system (CNS). Occurrence of immunogenic cell death (ICD) in this disease and expression of ICD markers in the CSF of MS patients are documented. However, cytotoxic effect of MS patients cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) on the cells is not reported. To evaluate the cytotoxic impact of CSF from MS patients on cell viability, human foreskin fibroblast (HFF2) cells were treated with CSF samples from individuals with MS and healthy controls. The results inferred that patient-derived CSF significantly declined the survival of HFF2 cells in comparison to the CSF of healthy individuals. This observation implies a cytotoxic environment and characteristic of patients CSF, which could be due to the presence of cellular-damaging factors such as calreticulin (CRT) in the patients CSF. The cytotoxic environment of CSF might reflect ICD occurrence in CNS of the patients and also could explain the progressive essence of the disease.