Complement dependen cytotoxic antibody activity against measles virus in multiple sclerosis

The presence of measles cytotoxic (CT) and hemagglutination inhibition (HI) antibodies in 195 multiples sclerosis (MS) patients and 251 controls was tested. The measles virus Lu carrier cells labeled with 51Cr were exposed to serum specimens in the presence of complement in order to test the presence of CT antibody. The analysis of complement dependent CT antibodies against measles virus revealed significantly (P less than 0.01) higher titers in MS patients than in the control group. However, the measles HI test failed to show this difference. Measles CT titers greater than or equal to 1: 32 among MS patients occured in 54.9% and in 35.5% among the controls. In comparison with this the HI method revealed measles titers greater than or equal to 1:128 more often in the control group than in MS cases (27.9 and 17.9%, respectively). The presence of CT antibodies against measles virus in MS proves that these patients have a function defence mechanism to eliminate virus infected cells. The high measles antibody titer among MS patients could be due to recurrent antigenic stimulation caused measles virus persistency. Whether this virus persistency plays a role in MS can not be decided on the available data.