Herpesviridae Seropositivity in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis: First Polish Study

Abstract

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that leads to inflammation, demyelination and neurodegeneration. Viral aetiology has been suspected to be an MS trigger for a long time, and herpesviruses (HSs) are among the potential pathogens involved. Objectives: The present investigation aims to detect the presence of antibodies against the herpes simplex virus (HSV), varicella-zoster virus, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), human cytomegalovirus (CMV) and human herpesvirus 6 (HHV6) in the serum of MS patients and control individuals in north-eastern Poland. Method: Plasma was collected from 141 MS patients and 44 blood donors who served as the control group. These individuals were assessed for the presence of antibodies using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results: The statistical analysis showed a higher probability of EBV (p = 0.037, OR 4.359) and HHV6 (p = 0.020, OR 3.343) antibody presence in patients with MS compared to that in the control group. In the MS patient group, the prevalence of CMV IgG antibodies was significantly higher in females (p = 0.025). Patients who tested positive for anti-EBV IgG were diagnosed 7.9 years earlier than patients who tested negative for anti-EBV IgG (p = 0.048). Conclusions: The study showed that MS patients in north-eastern Poland were more likely to be seropositive for EBV and HHV6 than healthy individuals. Further work should be undertaken in other regions of Poland and other European countries with particular attention paid to testing seropositivity in all HSs, particularly in the MS patient population, to evaluate the impact of HSs on MS patients in different environments.

Some Common SNPs of the T-Cell Homeostasis-Related Genes Are Associated with Multiple Sclerosis, but Not with the Clinical Manifestations of the Disease, in the Polish Population

“…Molecular studies were conducted in a group of 94 subjects with MS (47 males and 47 females, mean age 41.15 ± 9.74y, Table 1 ), which has been previously described in detail [ 27 , 28 ]. The control group consisted 160 unrelated healthy adults (85 males, 75 females; mean age 37.6 ± 2.16y) with no family history of autoimmune diseases.…”

Role of Viruses in the Pathogenesis of Multiple Sclerosis

“…Similarly, for HSV-1 and 2, viral encephalitis as a complication of the various immunosuppressive drugs used in MS therapy is seen [44][45][46], and there has been some suggestion of increased antibody prevalence of HSV-1 and 2 in MS patients (though potentially only in some cohorts of patients [47,48]), and this is not repeatable across different cohorts of patients [49]. HSV-1 in rats and mice can induce demyelinating encephalitis but it is not clear that this cross-species transmission event pathology is relevant in humans [50,51].…”

Environmental Influencers, MicroRNA, and Multiple Sclerosis

“…EBV infection in MS is documented in several articles. [69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77] Hassani et al have shown the presence of EBV in 90% of the tested MS cases (n = 101) compared with that in only 24% of the non-MS control cases (n = 24). EBV infection is associated with B cells, CD8 + T cells, astrocytes, and microglia.…”