 some heavy metals have been suspected of playing a role in the pathogenesis of nervous system diseases such as multiple sclerosis , amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , and alzheimer 's disease . in these disorders , 
 autoantibodies against neural proteins are evident at some stage of the disease . 
 lead is known to affect both the immune and nervous systems . 
 work in our laboratory has shown that lead exposure leads to the production of autoantibodies against neural proteins , including myelin basic protein ( mbp ) and glial fibrillary acidic protein ( gfap ) . 
 we hypothesize that lead aggravates neurological disease by enhancing the immunogenicity of nervous system proteins , including mbp and gfap . to test this hypothesis , 
 lead - altered protein was prepared by incubating mbp or gfap with lead acetate for 24 hr . on days 0 , 14 , and 28 , mice received inoculations with either saline , native protein , or lead - altered protein . 
 anti - mbp and anti - gfap , isotypes igm and igg , were measured in sera by elisa on day 38 . 
 sera of mice treated with lead - altered mbp had statistically higher anti - mbp igg titers than both control and native mbp - immunized mice . 
 an analogous response was seen in mice immunized with lead - altered gfap . 
 supernatants from lectin - stimulated splenocytes were also examined for antibody titers and for interleukin 2 ( il-2 ) and interleukin 6 ( il-6 ) levels . 
 a significant increase in il-6 production was seen in mice immunized with lead - altered mbp but not with lead - altered gfap . 
 no changes were observed in the il-2 levels of mice immunized with either lead - altered protein.(abstract truncated at 250 words)imagesp1052-afigure 1.figure 2.figure 3.figure 4.figure 5.figure 6 . 
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