Association between Allelic Variants of IL2, IL2RA, and IL7R Genes and Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic progressive disease of nervous system caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors leading to the development of a complex of autoimmune and neurodegenerative processes. We performed the analysis of association between multiple sclerosis and polymorphic markers of interleukin-2 (IL2), interleukin-2 receptor alpha chain (IL2A) and interleukin-7 receptor alpha chain (IL7R) in the group of Russians, Tatars, and Bashkirs from the Republic of Bashkortostan (N = 1620). In the total study group, we detected the association of IL7R rs10624573*I (OR = 0.79, P_Bonf = 0.018) and rs1494558*T (OR = 1.44, P_Bonf = 2.33 × 10^–4) variants with multiple sclerosis. When analyzed separately according to the ethnic origin, the association with IL7R rs1494558*T (OR = 1.49, P_Bonf = 0.005) remained significant in the group of Russians, and the association of IL7R rs10624573*I remained significant in the group of Bashkirs (OR = 0.56, P_Bonf = 0.02). We performed the multilocus analysis of association using the APSampler algorithm, and found seven combinations of the alleles and/or genotypes of the studied polymorphic loci, significantly associated with multiple sclerosis, most frequently including IL7R rs1494558 and IL7R rs10624573 allelic variants.