Open Access

ARTICLE

Serial immunoprecipitation assays for interferon – (IFN)-β antibodies in multiple sclerosis patients

Vito Lampasona¹, Jordi Rio², Diego Franciotta³, Roberto Furlan⁴, Carlo Avolio⁵, Raffaella Fazio⁶, Vito Lavolpe⁷, Angela Vincent⁸, Giancarlo Comi⁶, Maria Trojano⁷, Xavier Montalban², Gianvito Martino^4,6,*

1 Dept. of Clinical Chemistry, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
2 Neuroimmunology Unit, University Hospital Vall d’Hebron, Ps Vall d’Hebron 119 08035 Barcelona, Spain.
3 Laboratory of Neuroimmunology, IRCCS “C. Mondino” Neurological Institute, University of Pavia, Via Palestro 3, 27100 Pavia, Italy.
4 Neuroimmunology Unit – DIBIT, Department of Neuroscience, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Via Olgettina 58, 20132 Milan, Italy.
5 Neurology Unit, University of Foggia, 71100 Foggia, Italy.
6 Dept. of Neurology and Neurophysiology, University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, San Raffaele Hospital, Via Olgettina 48, 20132 Milan, Italy.
7 Department of Neurological and Psychiatric Sciences, University of Bari, Piazza G. Cesare 11, 70124 Bari, Italy.
8 Neurosciences Group, Department of Clinical Neurology, Institute of Molecular Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DS, United Kingdom.

* Corresponding Author: Gianvito Martino,

European Cytokine Network 2003, 14(3), 154-157.

Abstract

We devised a sensitive, radioimmunoprecipitation assay (RIPA) for anti-interferon (IFN)- b – binding antibody (BAB) detection. Our RIPA showed good agreement with a reference RIPA (mean difference, – 3.2 ± 10.6 AU), and detected BAB to both IFN-β-1α and IFN-β-1β. Neutralizing antibodies to IFN-β (NAB) were also determined with a standard method. BAB and NAB were measured in 393 serum samples from 77 multiple sclerosis (MS) patients treated with IFN-β-1α or -1β, who were studied over two years, and subsequently classified as responders and non-responders. BAB were found at higher concentrations, and more frequently detected, in IFN-β-1β- than in IFN-β-1α-treated patients, and, at highest titres, preferentially in patients who were positive for NAB. However, in our series of MS patients, both titres and frequency of detection of BAB or NAB did not differ between IFN-β responders and non-responders.

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Keywords

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