interferon-gamma gene polymorphism in iranian patients with multiple sclerosis

interferon- gamma (ifn- γ) is an important immune regulator and inflammatory cytokine which is implicated in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis (ms). a single nucleotide polymorphism, t to a, at position +874 in the first intron has previously been shown. this polymorphism is associated with ifn- γ production level. to study the effect of this polymorphism on susceptibility to multiple sclerosis, we screened genomic dna samples from clinically definite ms patients and their unaffected first-degree relatives as controls, using sequence-specific primers (pcr-ssp). the results indicated that ms patients showed a lower tt (21.2% vs. 30.3%) and higher aa (21.2% vs. 12.1%) genotypes compared to controls, although there were statistically no differences in the ifn- γ genotype distribution between these two groups. thus, our data indicate that there is no association between ifn- γ +874 polymorphism and ms susceptibility or severity of the disease.