Surprise… Virus Affecting ‘Most People’ Causes Serious Disease
A recent American study revealed that a common virus that affects most people at some point in their lives is behind the development of autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis.
Researchers, in a study published in PNAS, stated that the Epstein-Barr virus, which affects most people, may cause multiple sclerosis, but the mechanism by which this virus (EBV) triggers the immune system to attack the body’s cells has remained somewhat mysterious.
Now, researchers are one step closer to showing how the virus activates immune cells in the early stages of multiple sclerosis when initial symptoms appear without necessarily diagnosing the disease.
The Epstein-Barr viral infection generally occurs several years before the onset of multiple sclerosis, making it challenging for researchers to accurately determine how EBV is linked to the disease in some virus-infected individuals but not all of them.
Multiple sclerosis is known as an autoimmune condition where the immune system mistakenly attacks the protective fatty layer, called myelin, covering nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord.
Researchers at the Health Science Center at the University of Texas focused on the interactions between T cells in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for eight individuals experiencing early symptoms of multiple sclerosis, along with cells cultured in the laboratory infected with the EBV virus, in addition to viral particles.
They compared the T cell responses to the Epstein-Barr virus, EBV-infected cells, and other common viruses, including influenza, by identifying the sequences of receptors on the outer surface of T cells.
In blood samples from patients, 13% of T cells had receptors recognizing EBV-infected cells, while only 4% recognized influenza antigens.
In cerebrospinal fluid, the number of T cell clones recognizing EBV-infected cells increased, representing 47% of the analyzed cells.
According to “Science Alert,” these results indicate that T cells designed to recognize EBV-infected cells “exist in the cerebrospinal fluid in the early stages of multiple sclerosis, suggesting that they likely play a significant role in causing the disease.
