Association of anti‐gangliosides antibodies and anti‐CMV antibodies in Guillain–Barré syndrome

INTRODUCTION: Numerous types of infection were closely related to GBS, mainly including Campylobacter jejuni, Cytomegalovirus, which may lead to the production of anti‐gangliosides antibodies (AGA). Currently, although there are increased studies on the AGA and a few studies of anti‐CMV antibodies in GBS, the association between them remains poorly documented. Therefore, our research aims to analyze the correlation of anti‐CMV antibodies and AGA in GBS. METHODS: A total of 29 patients with GBS were enrolled in this study. The CMV antibodies were tested by the electrochemiluminescence immunoassay “ECLIA” (Roche Diagnostics GmbH). The serum gangliosides were determined by The EUROLINE test kit. RESULTS: Of the 29 patients with GBS, 9 (31%) were AGA‐seropositive, in which 22 were CMV‐IgG positive in CSF at the same time, but all 29 samples were CMV‐IgM negative in both serum and CSF. In the AGA‐positive group, the rate of both serum and CSF positive was 87.5% (7/8), higher than 50% (7/14) of the negative group, although no statistical significance was found. In addition, we found that there was a trend of higher ratio of men, a younger age onset, less frequent preceding infection, a higher level of CSF proteins, and less frequent cranial nerve deficits, although the data did not reach a statistical significance. CONCLUSION: In spite of no statistical significance association was found between serum AGA and CMV‐IgG in serum and CSF. However, we found that there was a trend of high positive rate of both serum and CSF‐CMV‐IgG in AGA‐positive than the negative group. So we should further expand the sample size to analyze the association between AGA and CMV or other neurotropic virus antibodies in various diseases, to observe whether they could be serological marker of these diseases (especially GBS) or the underlying pathogenesis.