Techniques to improve methods for rapid viral diagnosis of acute and persistent infections which affect the CNS continue to receive special emphasis. The use of short term tissue culture technique (24 hours followed by staining of cells using an anti-herpes antibody linked to biotin and a fluorescent labeled avidin conjugate) was shown to be a highly efficient system for detecting herpes antigen. We have also developed a capture technique to identify viral antigen directly in specimens without tissue culture. Comparison of this test with culture techniques indicate that non-infectious antigen can be detected for periods of time after viable virus has disappeared. Studies of a child with severe neurological involvement following congenital cytomegalovirus continue. The child has significant T helper and suppressor ratio alterations and abnormal cellular and humoral responses to CMV antigen; the immunological responses to other viral and non-specific mitogens have been normal. We found the use of silver staining technique for detection of oligoclonal bands in MS was more sensitive than Coomasie blue staining. We have developed a highly reproducible animal model for the study of acute and subacute demyelinating neurological disease using coronavirus and a strain of mice that is genetically resistant to mouse hepatitis virus infection. We found that thymosin had no suppressive effect on the incidence or severity of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) in guinea pigs. We have examined the humoral and cellular immune responses of patients with SSPE. Patients with SSPE have no detectable helper/suppressor abnormalities nor abnormalities in the non-specific mitogen proliferative response during progressive disease status. No IgM was demonstrated in serum against measles virus. However, the IgG was significantly elevated. Increases in the proportion of IgG1 and IgG4 were observed in the IgG component of serum.
