Vitamin D is increasingly recognized as a potential immune regulator of multiple sclerosis disease activity but its impact on B lymphocytes remains ill-defined. The authors of this study assessed the impact of vitamin D on B-cell proliferation and cytokine secretion and screened for effects of hypovitaminosis D and vitamin D supplementation on the distribution of B-cell subtypes in peripheral blood and cerebrospinal fluid from patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (n = 95) and various neurologic and healthy controls (n = 57). B cells from multiple sclerosis patients with hypovitaminosis D exhibited enhanced immune responses ex vivo. They also found that B-cell immunoreactivity is attenuated by vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency coincides with increased frequencies of effector B-cell subtypes in cerebrospinal fluid. They suggest that hypovitaminosis D might contribute to augmenting disease activity and point to a potential benefit of vitamin D supplementation in multiple sclerosis.

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Haas J, Schwarz A, Korporal-Kuhnke M, Faller S, Jarius S, Wildemann B: Hypovitaminosis D upscales B-cell immunoreactivity in multiple sclerosis. J.  Neuroimmunology  294: 18-26 (2016); doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroim.2016.03.011

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http://www.jni-journal.com/article/S0165-5728(16)30045-5/abstract