Author(s)

Dmitry Kostyushev, Ivan Tsarev, Dmitry Gnatenko, Mikhail Paltsev, Sergey Suchkov

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MS is a severe progressive autoimmune disease with slight short-term relapses in its course. Autoagression against vulnerable myelin-associated Ags results in multiple lesions throughout the CNS. Abnormal responses against nervous issues are mainly affected by cell-mediated and humoral immunity. The first one plays a key role in the restructuring of myelin, while the last one is a biomarker of MS and does not participate in the gradation of the disease. Wide-scale autoimmune attack towards nervous tissues leads to a stepwise demyelination with concomitant release of myelin Ags (epitope spreading), formation of Abs and, consequently, systematization of pro-inflammatory responses. Monitoring of antimyelin-antibodies (Abs: OSP, MOBP, BMP, MOG, PLP) in peripheral blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is just a brick for making the preclinical diagnosis of MS and timely implementation of predictive measures and preventive treatment. Major autoAbs and their target antigens are discussed in this chapter with a special emphasize on the possibility of their impact for identification of pre-morbid stages and differential diagnosis of MS.

Multiple Sclerosis; Antibodies; Autoimmunity; Pre-Clinical Diagnosis; Diagnosis; Prediction; Proteomics

Kostyushev, D. , Tsarev, I. , Gnatenko, D. , Paltsev, M. and Suchkov, S. (2011) Myelin-associated serological targets as applicable to diagnostic tools to be used at the preclinical and transient stages of multiple sclerosis progression. Open Journal of Immunology, 1, 80-86. doi: 10.4236/oji.2011.13010.