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mrhodes40 wrote:Even if you believe the autoimmune idea then the presence of b cells in the CNS means that an ebv infected person will have ebv in the cns. It is a very complex issue.

You may be interested in a paper I recently posted a link to in another discussion about EBV if you haven't seen it already. It could provide a possible explanation of why EBV might be important in MS in genetically susceptible individuals.

NHE

Thanks NHE,

Much of the discussion at the Think Tank was well above my understanding of this disease. But the paper you posted jogged my memory -

aB-crystallin

was mentioned on several occasions.

Ian

I came accross these two articles, which are pretty recent and were interesting along the EBV train.

Epstein-Barr Virus Might Kick-start Multiple Sclerosis at:http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medical ... wsid=42767

What we discovered in the peripheral blood of the MS patients were T cells that appeared to be primed for action against EBV

... our hypothesis is that the altered immune response contributes to the development and progression of the disease

Epstein-Barr virus usually persists life-long inside immune system B cells and is kept under control by virus-specific T cells. When B cells divide, the virus produces EBNA1 and uses it to slip its own DNA into the new cell. T cells that target EBNA1 are a crucial component of EBV-specific immune responses in individuals without MS

As expected, the T cells in the healthy volunteers activated only in the presence of a specific group of peptides. But, Edwards said, "EBNA1-specific T cells from the MS patients not only increased in frequency, but also recognized a much broader region of the protein, compared to healthy people who carried the EBV virus." Immunologists call this phenomenon epitope-spreading. "This was an interesting and unexpected finding," said Edwards. "

The next step will be to determine how these over-reactive immune cells trigger the destruction of the myelin ... For some reason, MS patients chronically accumulate these hyper-responsive T cells," she said. "And if these cells are indeed involved, either directly or indirectly, in central nervous system injury and inflammation, interfering with them could prove effective

The other article is a little more general:
Stronger Evidence Found Linking Epstein-Barr Virus And Risk Of Multiple Sclerosis at:http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medical ... wsid=41490

The researchers selected 42 individuals diagnosed with MS and that had serum specimens collected before the date of diagnosis. Two controls for each case were then selected from the serum database and matched by sex, date of blood collection, and age at time of blood collection.

The study's main finding was that antibodies--proteins produced by the body to fight infection--to the Epstein-Barr nuclear antigen (EBNA) complex and its component EBNA-1 in individuals with MS were elevated up to 20 years before the first symptoms of the disease and persisted thereafter.

Although these dont get rid of EBV, they still sparked my interest due to their limited activity against EBV: ie valacyclovir

Antiviral Drug Effective for Treatment of Infectious Mononucleosis May Also Reduce Person-to-Person Spread
http://www.ahc.umn.edu/news/releases/mo ... /home.html


A six-month trial of valacyclovir in the Epstein-Barr virus subset of chronic fatigue syndrome
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Has anyone ever been prescribed this medication? I think a related medicine is valganciclovir, but it appears to have a nasty profile.

Here is the official report of the EBV Think Tank I attended. It's pretty much the usual "more research required" and I think undersells some of the data that was presented - 99% of those with MS have had EBV and 90% of the general population gets EBV. Also, the children with MS data was very strong. The difficulty with all of this is proving a cause i.e getting this led to this...

So the jury is still out. Those who atttended were sent a more detailed report of the discussion. I think I covered it all in my summary. An interesting case raised was a school in Denmark where Glandular Fever had hit which was followed by an 'outbreak' of MS cases (a cluster). I recall a similar case when I started a thread on infectious causes some time ago. One poster recalled a bad case of mono (same as Glandular Fever) at a music school - she and her room mate came down with it and both wer dx with MS a few years after. She later heard of another student being dx with MS (out of a school of 300).

Ian

http://www.mssociety.org.uk/news_events ... bv_ms.html