More MS news articles for June 2002

Estrogen receptor gene polymorphism and multiple sclerosis in Japanese patients: interaction with HLA-DRB1*1501 and disease modulation

http://www.elsevier.com/gej-ng/10/27/37/130/27/36/abstract.html

Seiji Kikuchi a, Toshiyuki Fukazawa b, Masaaki Niino a, Ichiro Yabe a, Ryuji Miyagishi a, Takeshi Hamada b and Kunio Tashiro a
a Department of Neurology, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Kita-15 Nshi-7, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-8638, Japan
b Hokuyukai Neurology Hospital, Sapporo, Japan

We investigated PvuII and XbaI polymorphism in the estrogen receptor gene (ERG) and HLA-DRB1*1501 positivity in 116 conventional multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and 101 healthy controls in a Japanese population.

Logistic analysis revealed independent associations of [P] allele in the profiles for PvuII (p=0.0005, adjusted odds ratio (aOR)=3.17) and DRB1*1501 (p=0.0089, aOR=2.61) with conventional MS.

Synergistic elevated risk of MS due to interaction between the [P] allele and HLA-DRB1*1501 allele was found among female patients (odds ratio=16.0; 95% CI=3.99-63.8, p<0.0001).

The [P] allele-positive patients with disease duration of more than 5 years had a significantly higher progression index (PI) of disability (p=0.0230) and a worse ranked MS severity score (p=0.0152) than their non-[P] counterparts.