Promising diagnostic tools for multiple sclerosis developed at Yale

Yale School of Medicine researchers have identified three rapid
diagnostic methods that can target antibodies commonly found in
multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, greatly improving potential
diagnosis and treatment.
The team reports their findings in this week's Proceedings of the
National Academies of Science. MS is a crippling neurological
disease resulting from damage to myelin insulation surrounding
nerve fibers, and to nerve fibers themselves. MS symptoms can
include muscle weakness or paralysis, loss of vision, loss of
coordination, fatigue, pain and memory loss. There is currently
no cure for MS. Existing medications and treatments help manage
symptoms, slow down or modify disease progression.

Although anti-myelin antibodies are often found in MS patients,
the diagnostic value of these molecules that respond to infection
are limited because they are also found in patients without MS,
making it difficult to determine their role in the development of
the disease. In addition, MS patients might generate anti-myelin
antibody responses that reflect, rather than cause, the disease.

To address this diagnostic challenge, Nancy H. Ruddle, the John
Rodman Paul Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health and
Immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine, and her team developed
mouse models to find ways to distinguish between antibodies that
cause MS from those that are present in MS patients but do not
cause disease symptoms.

The team, including researchers from the University of
Connecticut, developed two ways to induce MS symptoms in mice.
They found that though both treatment procedures yield antibodies
to myelin, only one method made antibodies that could cause
disease in other mice. These antibodies were shown to recognize
and interact with a form of modified myelin found in MS. This
myelin was not recognized with the antibodies that did not cause
disease.

"Our results bring us one step closer to pinpointing more
accurate diagnostic tools to aid in designing treatments for
individual MS patients," said Ruddle, who is also Interim Deputy
Dean and Interim Vice Chair of Epidemiology and Public Health at
Yale.


###
Other authors on the study include first author, Cecilia B.
Marta, Alfred R. Oliver, Rebecca A. Sweet and Steve E. Pfeiffer.

PNAS 102: online week of September 19, 2005; in print on October
4, 2005
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