Multiple Sclerosis: Presence of Serum Antibodies to Lipids and Predominance of Cholesterol Recognition

A lot of available data on lipid immunology in multiple sclerosis (MS) have been derived from studies using synthetic lipids, therefore the role of lipids in the immunopathogenesis of MS remains poorly defined. The present study on the lipid response in MS was performed on native lipids from autopsied brain tissue. For this, lipid fractions (n = 9) were prepared from MS (n = 3) and control (n = 2) white matter according to the Folch procedure and were characterized depending on their solubility in chloroform/methanol. TLC showed that, in brain from MS cases, neutral lipids were rich in cholesterol and cholesterol esters while lipids from control brains displayed a predominance of phospholipids. MS serum IgG and IgM were found to bind to MS brain lipid fractions with a higher efficacy (p < 0.05) than the control serum. F(ab) fractionation revealed that MS serum IgG binding depended on a specific antibody-type of recognition. Pre-adsorption of serum with cholesterol, galactocerebrosides, sulfitides, and phosphatidylinositol prior to ELISA with MS brain lipids, showed that cholesterol diminished IgG and IgM binding up to 70%. Experiments with synthetic lipids confirmed the predominance of cholesterol binding by MS serum. Our results demonstrate that IgG and IgM fractions from MS serum specifically and predominantly recognize native cholesterol and cholesterol esters isolated from the brain tissue of patients with MS. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.