Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system. Recent clinical study suggested that MS patient exhibited acute heart failure. Further, 12-lead electrocardiographic study showed a longer QTc interval in both MS patient and experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) Lewis rat. However, there is limited study regarding the effect of sex on cardiac injury in EAE. To our knowledge, sex effect on cardiac damage in mice with EAE has not yet been published. Herein, we examined the role of the immune system in mediating cardiac dysfunction after EAE in female and male mice. Neurological function was subsequently evaluated and cardiac function was assessed by echocardiography at multiple time points after EAE. EAE mice exhibited severe neurological deficit and significant cardiac dysfunction, including decreased left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and left ventricular fractional shortening (LVFS) at 1 and 2 months after EAE induction. Meanwhile male EAE presented increased expression of the oxidative stress (e.g., nicotinamaide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase-2; NOX-2) in heart, as well as cardiac hypertrophy, increased left ventricle (LV) mass and more severe cardiac fibrosis compared with male control mice. In addition, male EAE mice showed significantly increased cardiac canonical inflammatory mediator (e.g., monocyte chemoattractant protein-1; MCP-1, transforming growth factor-β; TGF-β and toll-like receptor 2; TLR-2) compared with female EAE mice at 2 months after EAE induction. In conclusion, EAE increases inflammatory factor expression and aggravates cardiac dysfunction in male mice compared with female mice, which may contribute to different cardiac outcome in EAE mice.

多发性硬化症 (MS) 是一种中枢神经系统的慢性自身免疫性疾病。最近的临床研究表明，MS 患者表现出急性心力衰竭。此外，12 导联心电图研究显示 MS 患者和实验性自身免疫性脑脊髓炎 (EAE) Lewis 大鼠的 QTc 间期较长。然而，关于性别对 EAE 心脏损伤影响的研究有限。据我们所知，性别对 EAE 小鼠心脏损伤的影响尚未发表。在这里，我们检查了免疫系统在雌性和雄性小鼠 EAE 后介导心脏功能障碍中的作用。随后评估神经功能，并在 EAE 后的多个时间点通过超声心动图评估心脏功能。EAE 小鼠表现出严重的神经功能缺损和显着的心脏功能障碍，包括 EAE 诱导后 1 个月和 2 个月左心室射血分数 (LVEF) 和左心室缩短分数 (LVFS) 降低。同时，与男性对照相比，男性 EAE 表现出心脏中氧化应激（例如，烟酰胺腺嘌呤二核苷酸磷酸氧化酶-2；NOX-2）的表达增加，以及心脏肥大、左心室 (LV) 质量增加和更严重的心脏纤维化老鼠。此外，与雌性 EAE 相比，雄性 EAE 小鼠显示出显着增加的心脏经典炎症介质（例如，单核细胞趋化蛋白-1；MCP-1，转化生长因子-β；TGF-β 和 toll 样受体 2；TLR-2） EAE 诱导后 2 个月的小鼠。总之，与雌性小鼠相比，EAE 增加了雄性小鼠的炎症因子表达并加重了心脏功能障碍，