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Updated: Sep 4, 2025
Author Spotlight: Novel Assay for Studying B-Cell Responses in Multiple Sclerosis Research
Published on: December 1, 2023
Longitudinal analysis of anti-drug antibody development in multiple sclerosis patients treated with interferon
Linda van der Weele1, Sabrina Pollastro1, Barbera D C van Schaik2
1Department of Clinical Immunology & Rheumatology, Amsterdam Rheumatology and Immunology Centre (ARC), Amsterdam UMC228, Location AMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Department of Experimental Immunology, Amsterdam Infection & Immunity Institute (AIII), Amsterdam UMC, Location AMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Abstract:
A significant proportion of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients treated with interferon beta-1a (Rebif™) develop anti-drug antibodies (ADA) with a negative impact on treatment efficacy. We hypothesized that high-throughput B-cell receptor (BCR) repertoire analysis could be used to predict and monitor ADA development. To study this we analyzed 228 peripheral blood samples from 68 longitudinally followed patients starting on interferon beta-1a. Our results show that whole blood BCR analysis does not reflect, and does not predict ADA development in MS patients treated with interferon beta-1a. We propose that BCR analysis of phenotypically selected cell subsets or tissues might be more informative.
