Specific antibodies to EBNA1 epitopes as risk factors for multiple sclerosis, a systematic review

Hani Mosayebzadeh Roshan; Reza Valadan; Seyed Abdollah Hosseini; Abolghasem Ajami

doi:10.1016/j.jneuroim.2023.578202

Specific antibodies to EBNA1 epitopes as risk factors for multiple sclerosis, a systematic review

J Neuroimmunol. 2023 Oct 15:383:578202. doi: 10.1016/j.jneuroim.2023.578202. Epub 2023 Sep 16.

Authors

Hani Mosayebzadeh Roshan¹, Reza Valadan², Seyed Abdollah Hosseini³, Abolghasem Ajami⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran; Student Research Committee, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.
² Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran; Molecular and Cell Biology Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran.
³ Toxoplasmosis Research Center, Communicable Diseases Institute, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Iran.
⁴ Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran; Molecular and Cell Biology Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran; Antimicrobial Resistance Research Center, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Sari, Iran. Electronic address: ajami36@gmail.com.

PMID: 37751637
DOI: 10.1016/j.jneuroim.2023.578202

Abstract

Seroprevalence of anti-EBV antibodies was found to be almost 100% and 90% for multiple sclerosis patients and normal people, respectively. Furthermore, anti EBNA1 antibody which is an indicator of past EBV infection has a higher titer in the serum of Persons with MS (pwMS) compared to the EBV-infected subjects without MS. Though, this difference in anti-EBNA1 antibody titer between pwMS and non-MS controls is not a reliable marker to be used for discriminating pwMS and non-MS individuals. Some Studies have revealed specific epitopes on EBNA1 as the target for anti-EBNA1 antibodies in pwMS. Measuring antibody response against such specific epitopes can help better discriminate pwMS and non-MS individuals. This systematic review aims to obtain conclusive data from the studies which have sought to identify and map such epitopes on EBNA1. Five databases, including PubMed, Google Scholar, web of Science, Scopus, and Elsevier were searched for this purpose. Overall, 12 articles were finally included. Despite different articles describing not exactly the same epitopes, most of the epitopes described are within the amino acid sequence 385-420 of EBNA1. Among these epitopes, most of the epitopes have overlapping amino acid sequences with one another. The most highly overlapping sequence is RRPFF, which encompasses the amino acid 402 to 406 of EBNA1.

Keywords: Anti EBNA1; Epitopes; Epstein-Barr nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA1); Epstein-Barr virus (EBV); Multiple sclerosis (MS); Persons with MS (PwMS).

Publication types

Review