Abstract
The key to understanding the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis (MS) lies in a deeper analysis of the genes that play a role in the pathology of the disease. A new gene of interest encodes the retinoic acid receptor‐related orphan receptor alpha (RORA). This receptor is expressed in several tissues and plays a critical role in regulating inflammatory response, neuronal cell development, bone metabolism, and has been proposed to promote the differentiation of Th17 cells. Th17 cells play a role in initiating autoimmune central nervous system inflammation, which is the cause of this debilitating disease. To better understand the significance of RORA in MS, the focus of this study was to observe the expression of this receptor and determine its role in susceptibility of multiple sclerosis. We did so by isolating RNA from 10 brain samples, 5 from multiple sclerosis patients and 5 from healthy controls. We then subjected the RNA to quantitative RT‐PCR and normalized the samples to control RNAs TBP and GAPDH. We found that there was a significant increase in expression of RORA (P<0.05) in brain samples from MS patients compared with healthy controls. This novel finding could be used as diagnostic criteria for susceptibility of multiple sclerosis and could potentially be a target for new treatments.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.
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