Longitudinal spinal cord sections as substratum for anti-neurofilament antibody detection.

A rapid and technically simple method for demonstrating anti-neurofilament antibodies using longitudinal sections of rat spinal cord as substratum and indirect immunofluorescent technique is reported. The results compare well with those obtained by the technically more difficult and time-consuming methods using as substratum central neurons cultivated in vitro. A total of 195 serum specimens from different neurological disorders and healthy subjects were studied. Immunofluorescent autoantibodies to neurofilaments were found in specimens of serum from patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), kuru, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, parkinsonism dementia (Guam), Alzheimer's disease, and multiple sclerosis but in higher frequency in CJD and kuru than in the other disease or in healthy control subjects.