HERV-W and Serum Biomarker Associations in Multiple Sclerosis Patients

Stefano Ruberto's 2026 study analyzes humoral responses to HERV-W and serum biomarkers in 83 relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis patients and 112 healthy controls. The data includes measurements of anti-pHERV-W, anti-syncytin-1 IgG, their ratio, age and sex-adjusted Z-scores for neurofilament light chain (sNfL) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (sGFAP), MS severity scores, and cytokine levels. It correlates these factors with clinical phases like acute MS and stable MS with high disability.

Use Cases

• Correlate HERV-W ratio with Z-sNfL and Z-sGFAP scores to investigate links between viral activity and neural injury biomarkers.
• Build discriminant models using HERV-W, sNfL, and sGFAP data to classify patients with MS-EDSS scores greater than 4.
• Analyze associations between HERV-W humoral responses and proinflammatory cytokines like IL-6 and IL-1β across different clinical phases (AMS, SMS).
• Compare anti-pHERV-W and anti-syncytin-1 IgG levels between MS patient subgroups and healthy controls to assess specificity.

Strengths

• Includes data from 195 total subjects (83 RR-MS patients and 112 healthy controls), providing a case-control comparison.
• Contains multiple biomarker types: HERV-W humoral responses, serum biomarkers (sNfL, sGFAP), cytokines, and clinical scores (MSSS, EDSS).
• Data is associated with a 2026 publication, indicating recent research relevance.

Limitations

• The dataset is small at 195 total subjects, limiting statistical power for subgroup analyses.
• Data is presented in a DOCX document (1.2 MB), requiring manual extraction for computational analysis.
• Specific column names and a structured data table are not provided, complicating direct programmatic use.

Provenance

Source

Stefano Ruberto via figshare

Collection Method

Laboratory measurements of serum biomarkers and HERV-W antibodies in patient and control cohorts, analyzed with statistical models.

Freshness

Last updated March 23, 2026.