New Delhi (PTI): In a breakthrough which could help people suffering from multiple sclerosis, scientists have discovered that it is the interaction between two types of white blood cells which trigger the crippling disease.

"Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the brain and spinal cord affecting more than two million people in the world. It usually starts at young age between the age of 20-40 years old.

Although the disease is usually not life threatening, it leads to substantial disability.Often patients are wheel-chair ridden," said Gurumoorthy Krishnamoorthy, lead scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Germany.

"The research on multiple sclerosis has proven particularly difficult. This is due to the fact that it involves sensitive brain tissue and is, therefore, inaccessible", he told PTI in an email interview.

"Much of our current knowledge about MS has come mainly from studies in animal models. Until now, animal models of MS mainly focused on one type of immune cells called T cells.

However, in addition to the T cells, B cells, a type of immune cells, suspected to play a very crucial role in the destruction of brain cells was largely ignored by the existing animal models", the scientist who originally belongs to Tamil Nadu said.