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http://www.healthline.com/health-ne...-possible-environmental-trigger-for-ms-102313
Toxin-Emiting Bacteria May be Environmental Trigger for MS
Could eating meat from animals infected with C. perfringens Type B be the MS 'smoking gun?'
Researchers may have unearthed a trigger for multiple sclerosis (MS) that’s been hiding in plain sight. Scientists from Weill Cornell Medical College and Rockefeller University have identified a bacterium they believe can trigger MS—and it’s found just about everywhere, including dirt.
Their study, published in PLOS ONE, is the first to identify the bacterium, Clostridium (C.) perfringens type B, in humans. They first identified it in the blood of a 21-year-old woman with MS who was having a relapse.
She was part of the Harboring the Initial Trigger for MS (HITMS) observational study launched by Timothy Vartanian, a professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College and director of the Judith Jaffe Multiple Sclerosis Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell, and Kareem Rashid Rumah, an MD/PhD student at Weill Cornell and lead investigator.
Isolation of Clostridium perfringens Type B in an Individual at First Clinical Presentation of Multiple Sclerosis Provides Clues for Environmental Triggers of the Disease
Abstract
We have isolated Clostridium perfringens type B, an epsilon toxin-secreting bacillus, from a young woman at clinical presentation of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) with actively enhancing lesions on brain MRI. This finding represents the first time that C. perfringens type B has been detected in a human. Epsilon toxin’s tropism for the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and binding to oligodendrocytes/myelin makes it a provocative candidate for nascent lesion formation in MS. We examined a well-characterized population of MS patients and healthy controls for carriage of C. perfringens toxinotypes in the gastrointestinal tract. The human commensal Clostridium perfringens type A was present in approximately 50% of healthy human controls compared to only 23% in MS patients. We examined sera and CSF obtained from two tissue banks and found that immunoreactivity to ETX is 10 times more prevalent in people with MS than in healthy controls, indicating prior exposure to ETX in the MS population. C. perfringens epsilon toxin fits mechanistically with nascent MS lesion formation since these lesions are characterized by BBB permeability and oligodendrocyte cell death in the absence of an adaptive immune infiltrate.
Eco
Toxin-Emiting Bacteria May be Environmental Trigger for MS
Could eating meat from animals infected with C. perfringens Type B be the MS 'smoking gun?'
Researchers may have unearthed a trigger for multiple sclerosis (MS) that’s been hiding in plain sight. Scientists from Weill Cornell Medical College and Rockefeller University have identified a bacterium they believe can trigger MS—and it’s found just about everywhere, including dirt.
Their study, published in PLOS ONE, is the first to identify the bacterium, Clostridium (C.) perfringens type B, in humans. They first identified it in the blood of a 21-year-old woman with MS who was having a relapse.
She was part of the Harboring the Initial Trigger for MS (HITMS) observational study launched by Timothy Vartanian, a professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College and director of the Judith Jaffe Multiple Sclerosis Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell, and Kareem Rashid Rumah, an MD/PhD student at Weill Cornell and lead investigator.
Isolation of Clostridium perfringens Type B in an Individual at First Clinical Presentation of Multiple Sclerosis Provides Clues for Environmental Triggers of the Disease
- Kareem Rashid Rumah, Jennifer Linden,Vincent A. Fischetti, Timothy Vartanian
- Published: Oct 16, 2013 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0076359
Abstract
We have isolated Clostridium perfringens type B, an epsilon toxin-secreting bacillus, from a young woman at clinical presentation of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) with actively enhancing lesions on brain MRI. This finding represents the first time that C. perfringens type B has been detected in a human. Epsilon toxin’s tropism for the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and binding to oligodendrocytes/myelin makes it a provocative candidate for nascent lesion formation in MS. We examined a well-characterized population of MS patients and healthy controls for carriage of C. perfringens toxinotypes in the gastrointestinal tract. The human commensal Clostridium perfringens type A was present in approximately 50% of healthy human controls compared to only 23% in MS patients. We examined sera and CSF obtained from two tissue banks and found that immunoreactivity to ETX is 10 times more prevalent in people with MS than in healthy controls, indicating prior exposure to ETX in the MS population. C. perfringens epsilon toxin fits mechanistically with nascent MS lesion formation since these lesions are characterized by BBB permeability and oligodendrocyte cell death in the absence of an adaptive immune infiltrate.
Eco
