Inhibition of acute experimental allergic encephalomyelitis in mice by colchicine.

Colchicine was found to inhibit the clinical and histopathological manifestations of monophasic experimental allergic encephalomyelitis in mice. For inhibition of actively induced disease, inoculation of colchicine at the time of encephalitogenic challenge was found to be most effective. In adoptive transfer experiments, lymph node cells (LNC) from colchicine treated donors failed to transfer the disease. Additionally, colchicine treatment of recipients receiving an otherwise disease-inducing level of sensitized LNC prevented the development of disease. Experiments involving delayed-type hypersensitivity expression support an inhibitory role for the drug on event(s) of the efferent pathway of the cellular immune response.