This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1002/JPER.17-0531. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Oral infection with P. gingivalis Exacerbates Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis David Polak*, Aviv Shmueli † , Talma Brenner ‡ and Lior Shapira* * Department of Periodontology, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel. † Department of pediatric dentistry, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel. ‡ Laboratory of Neuroimmunology, Department of Neurology, The Agnes Ginges Center for Human Neurogenetics, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel. Corresponding author: David Polak, D.M.D., Ph.D. Department of Periodontology The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical Center P.O.Box 12272, Jerusalem 91120, Israel Tel: +972-2-6777826 ; Fax: +972-2-6438705 ; Email: polak@mail.huji.ac.il Running title: periodontitis and multiple sclerosis Conflict of interest and source of funding: the research is original, not under publication consideration elsewhere, and free of conflict of interest. Key findings: Subcutaneous and oral infections with live P. gingivalis aggravate EAE severity. Lymphocytes proliferation was enhanced towards the encephlatigenic MOG moiety following P. gingivalis infection compared with un-infected control EAE. Word count: 2358; Figures: 2; Tables:0; References:35