关键词：自身免疫性疾病；血脑屏障细胞（生物学）；医药
摘 要：Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, autoimmune neurodegenerative disease. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection is associated with MS pathogenesis. However, mechanism for the EBV-MS connection is unclear. The blood brain barrier (BBB) is a separation of circulating blood and the brain extracellular fluid in the central nervous system. BBB contains both endothelial cells as well as astrocytes. Interestingly EBV is able to infect both kinds of cells. Because EBV is able to transfer infection from one cell type to another cell type, it is thus hypothesized that EBV uses endothelial cells to infect astrocytes in the BBB, generate serials of cytokines that may eventually cause a leakage in the BBB. An in vitro model for human BBB will be established and infected the endothelial side of the BBB with EBV. Whether BBB is infected by the virus, the expression profiles of cytokines and other cellular genes, as well as the integrity of the BBB will be determined. Because both cytokine production and leakage of BBB are critical events for MS, this line of experiments may provide an evidence to support the etiological role of EBV in MS disease.