Multiple Sclerosis is a multifaceted disease with major disagreement about its pathogenesis.
This prompted us to introduce in the current issue of MSARD, the first in our ‘Controversies’
series (see below), and in the same vein, refer our readers to a review on MS genetics
by Sawcer and colleagues in the July edition of Lancet Neurology (
Sawcer et al., 2014
). Although no single gene mutation has been implicated in MS, the presence of now
over 100 common MS variants (polymorphisms) is emphasized in support of a genetic
contribution to MS. Most variants relate to the HLA and the immune system which is
proposed as evidence supporting an immune-based disease. This conclusion does not
exclude the possibility of an infectious etiology as both HLA and the immune system
are intricately involved in our response to infectious agents. A novel concept is
proposed – Insufficient Non-redundant Unnecessary Sufficient (INUS) which helps explain
the plurality of causation when a mutation cannot be found. The authors admit that
current variants account only for about 25% of heritability and propose a new concept,
namely ‘phantom heritability’!To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Reference
- Multiple sclerosis genetics.Lancet Neurol. 2014; 13: 700-709
Article info
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© 2014 Published by Elsevier Inc.
