PROBING FOR CEREBROSPINAL-FLUID ANTIBODY SPECIFICITIES BY A PANEL OF RANDOM PEPTIDE LIBRARIES

In a state of health the central nervous system is nearly devoid of ma crophages, T and B cells, However, such cells are required to initiate the inflammation associated with multiple sclerosis (MS), An importan t issue in understanding the pathogenesis of such conditions is to ful ly define the T and B cell specificities, Using random peptide librari es, we have analysed the cerebrospinal fluid antibody specificities wi thin one oligoclonal ''band'' from a patient with MS, The selected pep tides from a 6-mer library revealed two peptide motifs S (S/T/Q) (R/S) (N/G) FP and PRn (G/P) FF, Interestingly, the first motif,vas also se lected from a 15-mer library, while the second motif was selected from the 9-mer library, In addition, distinct but structurally related pep tides to the mentioned moths were also selected, Surprisingly, a Swiss Prot search with these moths revealed a significant linear homology wi th collagen proteins, the 68 kDa neurofilament protein, versican and o ther proteins from viruses such as herpes simplex virus, human cytomeg alovirus and human papillomavirus, Thus, the observation that antibodi es present within one oligoclonal immunoglobulin band could recognize peptides, some that might be related by only the structure, raises the question of the involvement of multiple pathogens in MS.