oral administration of probiotic enterococcus durans to ameliorate experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis in mice

introduction: probiotics, including lactobacilli, have immunomodulatory activities with promising effects on inflammatory diseases. in this study, we evaluate the effect of enterococcus durans (edu) and three various strains of lactobacilli (lacto-mix), including l. rhamnosus, l. casei, and l. plantarum, to prevent experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (eae) features methods: c57bl/6 female mice were inoculated with myelin oigodendrocyte glycoprotein (mog35-55) in cfa (complete freund’s adjuvant) to induce eae. five groups (n=6 in each group) of animals received saline or probiotics by oral gavage with 200 μl of lactobacilli (1.5×108 cfu/ml) for 2 weeks before the immunization and during the test for one month. results: histopathological studies showed an increase in infiltration of inflammatory cells and destruction of the myelin membrane in the eae group but a decrease in inflammatory cells in the probiotic-treated animals. pro-inflammatory cytokines (interleukin [il]-17 and interferon [ifn]-γ) concentration in the supernatant of the brain and spinal cord tissues showed a significant increase in the eae compared with the normal saline group (p 0.01). while in the spinal cord tissue, there was a decrease in il-17 in those animals treated with the lactomix and edu + lacto-mix (p 0.01) and a significant decrease in ifn-γ in those animals that received edu (p 0.05). western blot analysis of matrix metalloproteinase-9 and myelin basic protein showed a decrease and increase in treatment and eae groups, respectively, compared to the normal control group. conclusion: our data suggest that probiotic enterococcus durans and lacto-mix prevents eae, but further studies are needed to clarify the exact mechanisms and their application in preclinical and clinical trials.