Amino acid residues of serum and CSF protein in multiple sclerosis. Clinical application of statistical discriminant analysis.

Statistical discriminant analysis of the amino acid compostion of serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) proteins provides an objective method for distinguishing between normal controls and patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). This method also results in a high degree of specificity in separating MS patients from those with other diseases of the nervous system. The CSF protein serine residue is highly correlated with the CSF IgG and holds promise for a more sensitive diagnostic test for MS than the currently used CSF IgG. Finally, the serum/CSF protein serine ratio seems to correlate best with clinically determined degree of activity for the disease, the most active cases having the lowest ratio. These results suggest that investigation of the amino acid composition of serum and CSF protein in multiple sclerosis and, possibly, in other diseases might lead to the development of clinically useful tests of diagnosis and degree of activity of MS.