Association of CD1A +622 T/C, +737 G/C and CD1E +6129 A/G Genes Polymorphisms with Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

Antibodies and specific T cells to glycolipids have been found in MS patients. CD1 molecules are involved in presentation of lipid antigens to T-cells. Therefore, functional polymorphisms in two CD1 genes (+622 T/C and +737 G/C in CD1A along with +6129 A/G in CD1E) might be associated with susceptibility to MS. First, 351 MS patients and 342 controls were enrolled in this study. Allele-specific oligonucleotide polymerase chain reaction and PCR-RFLP methods were used for genotyping. The frequency of CD1A genotypes was not different between cases and controls. However, investigating females, the frequency of CD1A*01 allele was significantly higher in patients with PP-MS compared to controls (p = 0.028) as well as to RR-MS and SP-MS (p = 0.042 and 0.021, respectively). The distribution of CD1E +6129 A allele (CD1E*01) and CD1E*01/01 genotype is more frequent in normal controls in comparison with MS patients (p = 0.001 and p = 0.0003, respectively). In addition, after categorization of study groups according to disease types, differences between alleles and genotypes of CD1E gene polymorphism remained significant for RR-MS patients compared to those of normal controls (p = 0.0001 and p = 0.0003, respectively). CD1E and CD1A genes may be involved in networks which determine susceptibility to RR-MS and PP-MS, respectively.