Leptin surge precedes onset of autoimmune encephalomyelitis and correlates with development of pathogenic T cell responses
J. Clin. Invest. Veronica Sanna, et al. 111:241 doi:10.1172/JCI16721 [Go to this article.]

Figure 3
Serum leptin increase precedes the acute onset of relapsing-remitting EAE and correlates with disease susceptibility, body-weight loss, and food-intake inhibition in EAE-susceptible SJL/J female mice but not in EAE-resistant male mice. (a) Mean clinical score (bars) and body weight (curves) of SJL/J female mice (black bars and triangles) and male mice (white bars and circles) after immunization with PLP_139–151 peptide. SJL/J male mice are EAE resistant and do not lose weight after immunization, whereas SJL/J female mice are EAE susceptible and lose body weight. (b) Serum leptin (bars) increases before clinical onset of EAE only in SJL/J female mice and is significantly lower in male mice in preimmune conditions (2080.0 ± 325.0 pg/ml in SJL/J female mice and 470.0 ± 100.0 pg/ml in SJL/J male mice, P < 0.01); the increase correlates with food-intake inhibition present only in female mice. (c) Simple regression analysis showing a significant correlation (r = 0.71, P = 0.02) between the difference in serum leptin before and after immunization with PLP_139–155 peptide (Δ indicates the increase in serum leptin) and the CDI, calculated as the sum of each daily clinical score of each single mouse (n = 10). A significant correlation was observed in SJL/female mice but not in male mice. Data are accumulated and averaged from two independent experiments with similar results. y, equation that defines regression; R2, regression coefficient; R, correlation coefficient.