Glyphosate pathways to modern diseases VI: Prions, amyloidoses and autoimmune neurological diseases

At first glance, multiple sclerosis (MS) and autism appear to have little in common, aside from the fact that both are neurological diseases. Autism is a condition with prenatal or early childhood onset, characterized by repetitive behaviours, impaired social interaction and cognitive impairment. The male:female ratio for autism is 4:1, while multiple sclerosis is twice as common in women as in men; its first symptoms usually begin in early adulthood to involve impaired lower limb mobility, although in later stages it affects both mental and physical capabilities. Both conditions are, however, associated with inflammatory autoimmune features [1, 2], and both diseases are viewed as having an environmental and a genetic component [3–6]. A study comparing a population of 658 MS patients with the general population found an association between MS and increased rates of asthma, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), type 1 diabetes mellitus, pernicious anaemia and autoimmune thyroid disease [7], all of which have also been linked to autism [8–11]. These conditions are all considered to be autoimmune diseases, which can be triggered through molecular mimicry, where an antibody responding to a foreign protein that resembles a native protein becomes sensitized to the native protein as well [12]. A paper by Shoenfeld and Aron-Maor in 2000 developed the argument that both autism and MS may be examples of an autoimmune reaction via mimicry following exposure to an antigenic stimulus, possibly from an infection or through vaccination [13]. They further propose specifically that myelin basic protein (MBP) and other proteins constituting the myelin sheath are attacked by the immune system in both autism and MS. This has been recognized by many others in autism [14, 15] and MS [16–20]. In 1982, Weizman et al. reported a cell-mediated autoimmune response to human MBP in 76% of the autistic children studied [16]. Immune sensitization to the myelin sheath proteins could arise either through mimicry as a consequence of exposure of the immune system to a foreign antigen with a similar peptide sequence that is * Corresponding author. E-mail: seneff@csail.mit.edu Glyphosate pathways to modern diseases VI: Prions, amyloidoses and autoimmune neurological diseases Anthony Samsel1 and Stephanie Seneff 2, * 1 Samsel Environmental and Public Health Services, Deerfield, NH 03037, USA 2 Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA