The increased antibody response to Epstein-Barr virus in multiple sclerosis is restricted to selected virus proteins.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is associated with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection, and the antibody response to EBV is reported to be increased in MS. EBV contains multiple antigens, and only a few have been investigated. Our hypothesis is that MS patients will have an increased antibody response to only selected EBV antigens. We used immunoprecipitation and quantitative mass spectrometry to identify candidate EBV antigens. We then measured the antibody response to 10 individual EBV proteins with quantitative ELISA. We found that the antibody response was increased in MS to three of the EBV proteins, but not to the other seven.