Research Article Oligoclonal Bands in Cerebrospinal Fluid of Black Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Copyright © 2015 Paulo Diniz da Gama et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Genetic susceptibility is a well-recognized factor in the onset ofmultiple sclerosis (MS).The objective of this study was to determine the frequency of oligoclonal bands (OCB) restricted to the cerebrospinal fluid, in an ethnically mixed group of MS patients in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Techniques used to detect OCB consisted of isoelectric focusing followed by immunoblotting. OCB were found in 49 (54.4%) out of 90 patients with clinically definite MS; out of the 23 brown/black patients, 17 (73.9%) were OCB+; out of the 66 white patients, 32 (48.5%) were OCB+; and the only patient yellow was OCB+