Diagnosing Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis by detection of measles virus

摘要

There is disclosed a diagnostic system for the detection of measles virus RNA or metabolic products thereof. The viral RNA can be detected by a nucleic acid based test on purified or unpurified samples using the reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) or a nucleic acid based amplification reaction (NASBA). Alternatively the nucleocapsid protein, phosphoprotein, large protein, matrix protein, RNA polymerase complex, haemagglutinin protein, or fusion protein may be detected by immunoassay. Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis may be diagnosed by detecting measles virus in bowel tissue, bowel products or body fluids such as blood or lymph. Also disclosed is (i) a medicament for treating these diseases comprising measles virus antisense RNA and (ii) a measles vaccine comprising a system which expresses part or all of the measles virus genome.