If MS is an autoimmune disease what is the target autoantigen?
This is an age old problem.
The question we first have to ask is it a T cell problem or a B cell problem?
There is a lot of hope placed on B cells at the moment and it is relatively easy to see what B cells are recognising, because this is the target of their B cell receptors, which are the antibody molecules.
Recently we have has a sea of papers reporting on what the antibodies are recognising whether they are proteins or lipids.
There are many ways to do this you can use arrays of proteins and peptides (although antibodies of importance tend to recognise 3D shapes rather than straight short peptides) or you can make the heavy and light chains of the antibody molecule and make them genetically and go fishing for the target.
Both approaches are "fishing expeditions" rather than hypothesis led research. In this trawl they pull out Anoctamin2. The find that people with the gene associated with MS are more likely to make antibodies to this target.
Recently we had Kir4.1 as a target in MS. This is a potassium channel. But it wasn't replicated and is, this is yet another paper that shoots this one down in flames. So why should we believe that Anoc2 a chloride channel is the answer?
We can't until it is replicated.
Chances are this may fall by the ways side too, because other similar studies have not found this target.
Where is Anoc2 expressed. In the mouse it is in the eye and the olfactory system and if you knock it out there are problems with sensing odour....so does this new one smell fishy.
ProfG will be happy because one of the number one targets is good old EBV but then Anoc2 stands out too.
However as the antibodies target the fragments inside the cell, which is confirmed in the histology in the paper and so antibodies produced are not going to get to them and also the antibodies are expressed in people with established MS, points that this is an epiphenomenon and is the chicken rather than the egg. So as a consequence of damage the protein gets liberated and sets off a B cell response and as it is inside the cell it may not be of too much functional consequence.
Many groups will have to replicate this finding before it is accepted or rejected but as a cause of MS don't hold your breath