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Abstract |
1-10% of healthy individuals carry natural and high-affinity autoantibodies (aAb) to IFN-alpha while natural aAb to IFN-beta are extremely rare (< 0.1%).
BAb are difficult to measure reliably in solid-phase assays such as capture ELISA.
When using antiviral neutralisation assays for NAb, the apparent number of positive individuals can be manipulated considerably by the use of different amounts of added IFN in the assay.
When using antiviral neutralisation assays for NAb, controls for endogenous toxicity and antiviral activity are vital.
If looked for carefully with sufficiently accurate and sensitive BAb and NAb assays, all or almost all true BAb to IFN-beta in MS patients neutralise the antiviral activity of the cytokine; i.e. the distinction between 'non-neutralising' BAb and NAb in these patients is unclear, perhaps even false.
