An investigation of NOS2A promoter polymorphisms in Australian multiple sclerosis patients

Abstract

As with other major autoimmune diseases, susceptibility to multiple sclerosis (MS) is believed to result from the complex interaction of a number of genes, each with modest effect. Extensive research of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis in mice and several direct MS studies have implicated NOS2A, which encodes the inducible form of nitric oxide synthase, and the genetic region encoding NOS2A, 17q11.2, has been identified in a number of genome wide screens as being potentially associated with MS. We investigated four single nucleotide polymorphisms in the proximal promoter region of NOS2A, in a case-control group of 100 Australian MS patients and 100 controls and in 203 MS patients an..