Pathogenesis of Multiple Sclerosis: How Much Space is Left for Autoimmunity?

Abstract

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is generally considered an autoimmune disease, mainly because the preferred and wellstudied animal models for the disease are autoimmune models. In human disease, however, evidence for autoimmunity in MS has been sought for a long time with marginal results. On the other hand, two viruses, EBV and HHV-6A, play an etio-pathogenic role and, as recently discussed, their mutual interaction might be a key element in the pathogenesis of MS. This short review summarizes evidence that supports this view of changing the paradigm about the etio-pathogenesis of MS from autoimmunity to viral.