Figure 6

IL-1β expression in NMO lesions. IL-1β is expressed in active lesions of NMO patients (a). Perivascular lesions with pronounced IL-1β expression (b) show the characteristic pattern of complement C9neo deposition (c). IL-1β reactivity was absent in active lesions of acute MS cases (d,g), which were characterized by a high extent of demyelination (e, Kluever staining) and marked microglia activation (f, shown here by Iba1 immunostaining). No signal in NMO lesions was detected upon application of secondary antibody alone (h). Confocal microscopy shows macrophages in active NMO lesions stained with IL-1β⁺ (green, i) and Iba1⁺ (red, j). An overlay of these two different stainings is shown in (k). Scale bars: 100 μm (a,d,e,f,h), 50 μm (b,c), 25 μm (g), and 10 μm (i-k).