Roles of macrophage migration inhibitory factor in Guillain-Barré syndrome and experimental autoimmune neuritis: beneficial or harmful?

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) plays an important role in the pathogenesis of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and its animal model experimental autoimmune neuritis (EAN), which may offer an opportunity for the development of the novel therapeutic strategies for GBS.

Areas covered: ‘macrophage migration inhibitory factor’ and ‘Guillain-Barré syndrome’ were used as keywords to search for related publications on Pub-Med, National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), USA. MIF is involved in the etiology of various inflammatory and autoimmune disorders. However, the roles of MIF in GBS and EAN have not been summarized in the publications we identified. Therefore, in this review, we described and analyzed the major roles of MIF in GBS/EAN. Primarily, this molecule aggravates the inflammatory responses in this disorder. However, multiple studies indicated a protective role of MIF in GBS. The potential of MIF as a therapeutic target in GBS has been recently demonstrated in experimental and clinical studies, although clinical trials have been unavailable to date.

Expert opinion: MIF plays a critical role in the initiation and progression of GBS and EAN, and it may represent a potential therapeutic target for GBS.

KEYWORDS:

• Experimental autoimmune neuritis
• Guillain-Barré syndrome
• inflammation
• macrophage migration inhibitory factor
• therapy

Article highlights

• MIF is involved in the etiology of various inflammatory and autoimmune disorders.

• MIF plays a critical role in the initiation and progression of both GBS and EAN through aggravating inflammatory responses in these disorders.

• However, it is also indicated a protective role of MIF in GBS. Thus, further investigations are warranted to explore the role of MIF in GBS.

• The therapeutic effects of MIF inhibitors have been demonstrated in several models of autoimmune diseases, including EAN.

• MIF may represent a potential therapeutic target for GBS in the future.

This box summarizes key points contained in the article.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation (81471216; 81671186; 81671177; 31600820), The First Hospital of Jilin University (JDYY52014019), Norman Bethune Program of Jilin University (NO. 2015419)，and Health and Family Planning Commission of Jilin Province of China (NO. 2014Q028), as well as from the Swedish Research Council (K2013-66X-22337-01-3) and project with 2015-03005).