ANTIBODIES AGAINST THREE DIFFERENT STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS OF MEASLES VIRUS IN PATIENTS WITH MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS, THEIR SIBLINGS AND MATCHED CONTROLS

Abstract

Patients with multiple sclerosis, their siblings and controls matched for age, sex and place of residence were tested for antibodies to measles virus hemagglutinin (HI), hemolysin (HLI) and nucleocapsid complement‐fixing (NC‐CF) antigen. No qualitative differences between the study groups as concerns the diversity of the antibody responses to measles were found. The mean titres of MS specimens were about one logarithm of two higher than the means of the controls in each of the tests. The difference was somewhat more pronounced in the HLI and NC‐CF tests than in the HI test. Females had higher titres than males in all of the tests. Antibody titres were higher in subjects, who had contracted their measles at an older age. However this finding could not explain the observed differences in antibody titres, since MS patients had higher titres than the controls in all age groups. The importance of appropriate selection of measles antibody test for serological characterization of a clinical material of the present kind is emphasized.