J. Mclaurin et al., REACTIVITY OF NORMAL T-CELL LINES TO MBP ISOLATED FROM NORMAL AND MULTIPLE-SCLEROSIS WHITE-MATTER, Journal of the neurological sciences, 128(2), 1995, pp. 205-211
T-cell reactivity to human myelin basic protein (MBP) has been extensi
vely studied using T-cell lines and clones generated from both periphe
ral blood and cerebrospinal fluid, from normal controls and multiple s
clerosis (MS) patients. These studies have largely utilized myelin bas
ic protein isolated from control human adult white matter. In our stud
y, we used MBP reactive T-cell lines as a probe to investigate antigen
ic differences in a series of MBP preparations isolated from either co
ntrol human white matter or white matter from the central nervous syst
em (CNS) of MS patients. Autologous peripheral blood derived mononucle
ar cells were used as antigen presenting cells (APC). Although the maj
ority of T-cells were found to react equally well with all preparation
s of MBP isolated from both control and MS white matter, we were also
able to identify T-cell lines which reacted well with all preparations
of MBP isolated from controls but failed to react with MBP isolated f
rom MS white matter. These differences were unlikely to reflect differ
ences in degradation products or excess peptides present in the MS bra
in since SDS-PAGE and HPLC did not show any difference in the MS sampl
es compared to the controls, and the concentration response curves for
a human T-cell clone specific for the 84-102 region of MBP were simil
ar for all the MBP preparations. We did not detect differences in amin
o acid content amongst MBP preparations although single amino acid sub
stitutions cannot be ruled out. These results raise the possibility th
at MBP isolated from MS brain may differ in charge microheterogeneity
which would affect antigenic determinants. The processing of MBP by di
fferent APCs is another variable which could underlie the differences
in T-cell reactivity to various MBP preparations.