EBV Found in Brain Cells of Many MS Patients

[BadBadBear]

https://multiplesclerosisnewstoday....irus-multiple-sclerosis-patients-brain-cells/

Excerpt: We show for the first time that astrocytes and microglia, in addition to B-cells, can also be infected,” the team wrote. “To the best of our knowledge, this is the most comprehensive study demonstrating that EBV is present and transcriptionally active in the brain of most cases of MS and supports a role for the virus in MS pathogenesis.”

 

[BadBadBear]

@Hip , in one of @pattismith threads you mentioned biopsies not being done on CFS patients, I thought this article might be of interest if you have not read it already.

 

[pattismith]

"Their study involved examining brain tissue samples and DNA of two sets of people who had died: 101 with MS and 21 with other neurodegenerative disorders.

Altogether, they looked at 1,055 specimens — 615 of brain tissue and 440 of DNA.

They found the Epstein-Barr virus in 90 percent of the MS cases, versus 24 percent of the non-MS cases.

The team discovered low to moderate amounts of the virus in most of the MS patients. But in 18 percent of the cases, “widespread but scattered presence of EBV-infected [Epstein-Barr-virus-infected] cells was noted in the affected tissues,” they wrote.

Gene expression studies on the 18 heavily infected MS cases confirmed that the genes had been producing EBNA1, a protein that plays a key role in the virus’s life cycle.

Researchers also detected BZLF1, a protein involved in the virus shifting from a dormant to an active stage. But there was less BZLF1 than EBNA1 production.

The team found no other herpus viruses in the samples.

“The fact that we did not find any evidence for the presence of other common human herpes viruses — namely HSV-1, CMV and HHV-6 — in any of the cases indicates that the presence of EBV in MS is likely to be selective and specific,” the researchers wrote."

Fantastic study, thank you for tagging me @BadBadBear

Here the full paper:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0192109&type=printable

 

[wastwater]

Is there a role for the blood Brain barrier in this.
Alice in wonderland syndrome in thought to involve EBV mentioned in oslers web
Can ebv be treated when it’s in the brain

 

[BadBadBear]

Michael VanElzakker referenced this study to show Famvir can cross the BBB.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8568288

His Tweet about it:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/747913894237184001