Mercury & MS--Is there a link?

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Here is an abstract which illustrates the mechanism by which mercury may

cause disruption of T-cells leading to autoimmune disorders.

J Immunol. 1988 Feb 1;140(3):750-4.

Autoreactive T cells in mercury-induced autoimmunity. Ability to induce

the autoimmune disease.

Pelletier L, Pasquier R, Rossert J, Vial MC, Mandet C, Druet P.

Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale, Hopital

Broussais, Paris, France.

It has been previously shown that autoreactive T cells appear during

mercury-induced autoimmunity in Brown-Norway (BN) rats. In the present

work, it is shown that: 1) T cells and T helper cells from

HgCl2-injected BN rats are able to actively transfer autoimmunity in

normal BN rats; the disease transferred is exacerbated when recipients

are treated with the antisuppressor/cytotoxic T cell monoclonal antibody

(OX8); 2) normal T cells preincubated with HgCl2 are also able to

transfer the disease in OX8-treated but not in T cell-depleted rats; and

3) T cells from HgCl2-injected BN rats also transferred the disease in

both normal and T cell depleted rats. It is concluded that: 1)

autoreactive T cells, and presumably anti-Ia T cells are involved in the

pathogenesis of mercury-induced autoimmunity; 2) these autoreactive T

cells induce suppressor/cytotoxic T cells to proliferate in normal

syngeneic recipients; the fact that this T cell subset did not

proliferate in HgCl2-injected BN rats suggests that HgCl2 also affects T

suppressor cells; and 3) mercury-induced autoimmunity could result from

the additive effect of the emergence of autoreactive T cells and of a

defect at the T suppressor level.

PMID: 3257501