Expression data from periplaque regions in multiple sclerosis spinal cord

There have been few studies that have focused on the periplaque regions surrounding demyelinated plaques, especially in spinal cords. Areas of incomplete demyelination have been demonstrated but poorly studied. The present study aimed to analyze the molecular immunopathology of periplaque demyelinated lesions (PDLs) in the spinal cord of patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS). To achieve this goal, the transcriptomic profiles of PDLs were analyzed in post-mortem tissues derived from the cervical spinal cord of 8 patients with primary or secondary progressive MS. Sixteen spinal cord samples were microdissected for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. Eight periplaque samples (P) were compared to normal appearing white matter (N) from the same patient.