Serologic Evaluation of Epstein-Barr Virus in Multiple Sclerosis

Background and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the central nervous system that is an auto-immune disease, where the immune system gets confused and attacks the nerve cells, damaging this protective layer of myelin sheath. The prevalence of MS is 52 per 100000 worldwide. The relation between Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and MS is well understood but studies reported different results. This study aimed at determining any association between IgG and IgG and EBV in patients with MS and healthy controls.
A case-control study was performed in which serum samples were collected from 45 MS patients (attending Sari Boali-Sina Hospital, Iran, 2014-2015) and 45 control samples. The blood samples were centrifuged and plasma was separated. All samples were tested for anti EBV antibodies using Enzyme Linked Immunosorbant Assay (ELISA).
In this study, 100% of samples from patients with MS were IgG positive and 85% of control samples were IgG positive. We found that 13.3% of MS positive samples were IgM positive but all control samples were IgM negative.
According to our results the rate of positive IgM against EBV-CA in patients with MS was higher than that in normal individuals.