[MSRV retrovirus and gliotoxin protein: potential biological markers in multiple sclerosis?]

The aetiopathogeny of multiple sclerosis, a neurological disease which prevalence and duration generate an important problem of public health in industrialized countries where it is most frequent, is not clearly understood. The keys for the diagnosis and therapeutic strategies of MS are nonetheless dependent upon the identification of a well-defined aetiology and upon the understanding of the mechanisms and pathogenic connexions which lead to the demyelinating lesions of the central nervous system and to the dysfunctions of the immune system (autoimmunity) characteristic for the disease. The recent identification of a retroviral agent (MSRV) which produces extracellular particles detectable in the plasma, the CSF, and in some cell cultures from patients with MS, as well as of a cytotoxic factor targeting glial cells (gliotoxin) detected in parallel, could help elucidating the aetiopathogeny of MS. The usefulness of biological markers and targets derived from MSRV retrovirus and this gliotoxin, in the diagnostic and therapeutic perspectives for MS, is discussed in the light of the different aetiopathogenic hypotheses for the disease. From our results it is conceivable that a retroviral agent and pathogenic molecules such as this gliotoxin and an eventual MSRV-associated retroviral superantigen might initiate and perpetuate the cascade of events leading to MS. However, similar data on different simple retroviruses were recently published concerning autoimmune diseases such as diabetes type 1, Sjögren's syndrome and systemic lupus erythematosis, which could prefigurate a broader concept for the role of such retroviruses in the aetiopathogenesis of autoimmune diseases.