The new blood test provides for sclerosis many years before symptoms

The research team at the Medical University of Vienna has developed a blood test that allows you to identify people at risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) with a high degree of confidence in years before the occurrence of symptoms. As a result, in the future, diagnostic and therapeutic measurements may be taken early enough to delay and even prevent the occurrence of the disease. Appropriate research has just been published in the well -known Nature Communications journal.

The new method was developed by research teams led by Elisabeth Puchhammer-Stöckl and Hannes Vietzen from the Virology Center, as well as Thomas Berger and Paulus Rommer from the Department of Neurology, all in Medunia Vienna. It is based on an immune test, which identifies specific antibodies against Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). This widespread virus is a key factor in the development of multiple sclerosis, with almost all cases of multiple EBV sclerosis.

In particular, the test detects AutoanticNo antibodies that originally developed against the specific section of the EBV EBNA-1 protein (Epstein-Barr nuclear antigen 1), but which also react to specific structures in the human brain. These antibodies can be observed within three years after the EBV infection – and long before observing the clinical symptoms of multiple sclerosis. By repeatedly measuring these levels of antibodies, a significantly increased risk of later diagnosis of MS can be identified.

Our research shows that people at whom the high level of these antibodies is detected at least twice will probably develop MS in the coming years. “

Hannes Vietzen, first author of the study

A retrospective examination is based on blood samples obtained from over 700 ms of patients and over 5,000 control people. In the Kohort part, you can even clearly trace the time of the initial EBV infection and from there the development of multiple sclerosis in time. In this group, high levels of antibodies were consistently associated with highly increased risk of multiple sclerosis and rapid development of the disease.

Ms immunologically predictable long before clinical symptoms

Multiple sclerosis is chronic inflammatory disease in the middle nervous system This affects about 2.8 million people around the world. Its development is associated with immune processes that can be caused by Epstein-Barr infection. Almost everyone (90 to 95 percent of the population) is infected with EBV during their lives, and the virus stays in the body. The original infection may remain asymptomatic or cause a symptomatic disease called infectious mononucleosis in some people, especially in people with symptomatic disease, EBV infection also leads to an incorrectly directed immune response, which attacks the structure of its own central nervous system.

“Our study shows that using this test antibodies the development of multiple sclerosis becomes immunologically predictable long before the appearance of the first symptoms”-Donosi research leader Elisabeth Puchhammer-Stöckl, head of the Center for Virology at Meduni Vienna. Other markers, such as a light chain neurofilament (NFL) or fibrillarical acid protein (GFAP), which indicate damage to nerve cells, grow only later in the process. The new test can therefore be an important tool for early identification of people who are exposed to a high risk of developing multiple sclerosis. “This would allow the diagnosis and treatment of these people at such an early stage that the beginning of multiple sclerosis can be delayed, and may even prevent,” says the leader of the Paulus Rommer testing coefficient. “On the basis of our findings, we offer a study of population group research with an increased risk of multiple sclerosis – for example, those who had infectious mononucleosis,” says Thomas Berger, head of the Department of Neurology in Meduni Vienna, looking into the future. However, further research is necessary before the new test is used in clinical practice.