Association Between HLA-A*02 Genotype and Multiple Sclerosis in Khuzestan Province, Iran

Abstract

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, inflammatory, demyelinating, and neurodegenerative autoimmune disease of the central nervous system (CNS). In the disease, the immune system attacks myelin sheath around neurons. The pathogenesis of this disease is still unknown, but there is evidence of complex interactions of both environmental and genetic factors. The recent evidence suggests that HLA class I may also contribute to MS and the negative association and protective role of HLA-A*02 with MS is confirmed. The current study aimed at investigating the association between HLA-A*02 with MS in Khuzestan province, Iran. Methods: The current study was conducted on 200 patients with MS and 200 healthy controls from Khuzestan Province. The male to female ratio was 1:4. HLA typing was performed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification with sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP) method. The association between HLA-A*02 and MS was evaluated with SPSS version 21 using chi-square test. Results: The most abundant type of MS in the current study participants was RRMS with the frequency of 87.93%, and the remaining 20% had progressive relapsing (PR), primary progressive (PP), and secondary progressive (SP) MS. There was a significant decrease in the frequency of HLA-A*02 in patients with MS (29%) in comparison with the healthy control (54%) and negative association of HLA-A*02 with MS (P < 0.0001, odds ratio (OR) = 0.356) was observed. The average of EDSS was 1.9 and most of the patients (about 60.5%) had EDSS of 1 - 3. There was no significant statistical association between HLA-A*02 and the variables of gender, ethnicity, EDSS grade, and type of MS in the study participants. Conclusions: According to the current study results, HLA–A*02 genotype decreased the risk of MS and had a protective role against multiple sclerosis in Khuzestan Province.