“Part of the EBV protein mimics your own host protein—in this case, GlialCAM, found in the insulating sheath on nerves,” said William Robinson, MD, Ph.D., professor of immunology and rheumatology at Stanford. “This means that when the immune system attacks EBV to clear the virus, it also ends up targeting GlialCAM in the myelin.”
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Lanz, T.V., Brewer, R.C., Ho, P.P. et al. Clonally expanded B cells in multiple sclerosis bind EBV EBNA1 and GlialCAM. Nature 603, 321–327 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04432-7