Mechanisms of damage to myelin and oligodendrocytes and their relevance to disease

Oligodendrocytes synthesize and maintain myelin in the central nervous system (CNS). Damage may occur to these cells in a number of conditions, including infections, exposure to toxins, injury, degeneration, or autoimmune disease, arising both in the course of human disease and in experimental animal models of demyelination and dysmyelination; multiple sclerosis is the commonest human demyelinating disorder. Conventional classical accounts of the pathology of this and other myelin diseases have given great insights into their core features, but there remain considerable uncertainties concerning the timing, means and cause(s) of oligodendrocyte and myelin damage. At present, therapeutic efforts largely concentrate on immune manipulation and damage limitation, an approach that has produced only modest effects in multiple sclerosis. One reason for this must be the limited understanding of the mechanisms underlying cell damage – clearly, successful therapeutic strategies for preserving the oligodendrocyte‐myelin unit must depend on knowledge of how oligodendrocyte damage and death occurs. In this review, mechanisms of oligodendrocyte and myelin damage are considered, and attempts made to relate them to disease processes, clinical and experimental. The hallmarks of different cell death processes are described, and oligodendrocyte‐myelin injury by cellular and soluble mediators is discussed, both in vitro and invivo . Recent developments concerning the pathological involvement of oligodendrocytes in neurodegenerative disease are summarized. Finally, these neuropathological and applied neurobiological observations are drawn together in the context of multiple sclerosis.