Mediation of Protection and Recovery From Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis by Macrophages Expressing the Human Voltage-Gated Sodium Channel NaV1.5

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common nontraumatic cause of neurologic disability in young adults. Despite treatment, progressive tissue injury leads to accumulation of disability in many patients. Here, our goal was to develop an immune-mediated strategy to promote tissue repair and clinical recovery in an MS animal model. We previously demonstrated that a variant of the voltage-gated sodium channel NaV1.5 is expressed intracellularly in human macrophages, and that it regulates cellular signaling. This channel is not expressed in mouse macrophages, which has limited the study of its functions. To overcome this obstacle, we developed a novel transgenic mouse model (C57BL6), in which the human macrophage NaV1.5 splice variant is expressed in vivo in mouse macrophages. These mice were protected from experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, the mouse model of MS. During active inflammatory disease, NaV1.5-positive macrophages were found in spinal cord lesions where they formed phagocytic cell clusters; they expressed markers of alternative activation during recovery. NaV1.5-positive macrophages that were adoptively transferred into wild-type recipients with established experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis homed to lesions and promoted recovery. These results suggest that NaV1.5-positive macrophages enhance recovery from CNS inflammatory disease and could potentially be developed as a cell-based therapy for the treatment of MS.