The T-cell receptor beta locus and susceptibility to multiple sclerosis

Neurology. 1995 Oct;45(10):1859-63. doi: 10.1212/wnl.45.10.1859.

Abstract

Assessments of genetically determined variations in the T-cell antigen receptor in multiple sclerosis (MS) have yielded conflicting results. We used three restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) and a polymorphic microsatellite repeat as markers for the T-cell receptor (TCR) beta locus (7q32-35) in multiplex MS families. Affected sibling-pair analysis of the RFLP data failed to show evidence for linkage (127 families) whereas analysis of the microsatellite data (86 families) provided weak evidence for linkage with a maximum lod score of 0.98 (p < 0.05). We repeated the analysis in those families (n = 53) in which the affected sibling pairs were concordant for the HLA haplotype DR15/DQ6. This altered the proportion of affected siblings sharing 0, 1, 2 RFLP haplotypes from 0.24, 0.50, and 0.26 (p = NS) before stratification to 0.16, 0.41, and 0.43 (p < 0.05) in the DR15/DQ6 positive pairs alone; for the microsatellite data, sharing altered from 0.16, 0.50, and 0.34 (p < 0.05) in all pairs to 0.07, 0.49, and 0.44 (p < 0.01) in the DR15/DQ6 concordant siblings.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Base Sequence
  • DNA, Satellite / analysis
  • Female
  • Haplotypes
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Multiple Sclerosis / genetics*
  • Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length
  • Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, alpha-beta / genetics*
  • Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid

Substances

  • DNA, Satellite
  • Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, alpha-beta