Research Article Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis Development Is Aggravated by Candida albicans Infection

Copyright © 2015 Thais F. C. Fraga-Silva et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory/autoimmune disease of the central nervous system (CNS) mainly mediated by myelin specific T cells. It is widely believed that environmental factors, including fungal infections, contribute to disease induction or evolution. Even thoughCandida infection amongMS patients has been described, the participation of this fungus in this pathology is not clear. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the effect of a Candida albicans infection on experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) that is a widely accepted model to study MS. Female C57BL/6 mice were infected with C. albicans and 3 days later, animalswere submitted to EAE induction by immunizationwithmyelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein. Previous infection increased the clinical score and also the body weight loss. EAE aggravation was associated with expansion of peripheral CD4+ T cells and production of high levels of TNF