Humoral and cellular immune responses to myelin protein peptides in chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy

Objectives: Evidence that chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP) is an autoimmune disease was sought, by studying cellular and humoral immune responses to peripheral nerve myelin proteins. Methods: 40 CIDP, 36 healthy control subjects (HC) and subjects with non-immune mediated neuropathies (other neuropathies, ON) for antibodies were studied by ELISA and cellular responses by cytokine ELISPOT (INF gamma, IL10) and ELISA (IL17) to synthetic peptides representing P0, P2 and PMP22. Results: Antibodies to P0, P2 or PMP22 peptides were detected in only a minority of CIDP, both not treated (nTCIDP) and treated (T-CIDP). IgG antibodies to P2(80-105) were significantly more frequent in CIDP than in HC (4/30 vs 0/32; p<0.05) but the difference from ON (1/25) was not significant. In ELISPOT assays, IFN gamma was detected at a low frequency in CIDP and did not differ from HC or ON. In contrast, IL10 responses against P2(1-85) were more frequent in nT and T-CIDP (7/24 and 3/16) than HC (0/36; p<0.001 and p