Oligodendrocytes within astrocytes (“emperipolesis”) in the white matter in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

The occurrence of oligodendrocytes within astrocytes (“emperipolesis”) has been described in demyelinating lesions in cases of multiple sclerosis and also in other non-demyelinating disorders. We found that this finding was common in the cerebral white matter of patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Eight consecutive autopsy cases of sporadic CJD were reviewed, and in every case the gray matter exhibited classical histopathological features of CJD. In five cases with a long clinical course, the cerebral white matter was severely involved, and both axons and myelin sheaths were lost markedly. Within this devastated white matter, many hypertrophic astrocytes were found to engulf one to several oligodendrocytes within their cytoplasm (emperipolesis). The oligodendroglial nature of the engulfed cells was corroborated by nuclear immunoreactivity for anti-human Olig 2 antibody. In the remaining three cases, whose clinical course was short, the cerebral white matter was relatively well preserved, and emperipolesis was not or only very rarely found. The prevalence of emperipolesis of this type in the white matter in CJD was well correlated with the severity of the white matter lesions.