T-Cell Epitopes of the Measles Virus (MV) NucleoProtein were studied by synthesizing overlapping 20 aa Peptides over the known sequence of the protein and analyzing the proliferation responses of a panel of MV-specific T-Cell lines and clones against these Peptides.

T-Cell lines were established from eleven healthy controls and seven Multiple Sclerosis patients, all with a history of past MV infection.

The Epitopes recognized by these lines were concentrated in a few regions of the PolyPeptide chain. Overlapping Peptides containing aa 321-340 and 331-350 were most often recognized.

Other Epitopes were detected close to the amino-terminal end of the PolyPeptide chain as each of the Peptides 1-20, 21-40, 31-50 and 51-70 contained stimulating moieties.

Some responses were also detected towards Peptides 151-200 and 221-250, but the carboxy-terminal end of the PolyPeptide was not recognized by any of the tested T-Cell lines.

The Amino Acid sequences of the Peptides that stimulated the T-Cell clones and lines, as a rule, contained binding motifs described for HLA-DR alleles found in T-Cell donors.

The regions of protein sequence which did not reveal any T-Cell Epitopes were, instead, relatively free of binding motifs.

The results suggest that only a few Epitopes of the MV NucleoProtein are important in establishing T-Cell Immunity.

Measles c.f.a. and h.i.e. were titrated in Sera and, when possible, in the CerebroSpinal Fluids of 183 MS patients and in Sera from a control group of subjects.

No significative difference was found by the h.i. test, whereas significantly higher was the frequence of positives by the c.f. test in the MS group, with no correlation with the therapy to which the patients were subjected.

The presence of c.f.a. in 13 of 48 CerebroSpinal Fluids tested, together with a low value of the Serum/CSF AntiBodies ratio and with the lack of CSF AntiBodies against other Viral Antigens tested (HSV, Rubeola), could indicate an intra CNS production of Measles AntiBodies.