ccr5δ32 polymorphism associated with a slower rate disease progression in a cohort of rr-ms sicilian patientsccr5δ32多态性与疾病进展速度较慢,在一群rr-ms西西里的病人.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Multiple Sclerosis International Volume 2011, Article ID 153282, 6 pages doi:10.1155/2011/153282 Research Article CCR5Δ32 Polymorphism Associated with a Slower Rate Disease Progression in a Cohort of RR-MS Sicilian Patients Rosalia D’Angelo, Concetta Crisafulli, Carmela Rinaldi, Alessia Ruggeri, Aldo Amato, and Antonina Sidoti Department of Biomorphology and Biotechnologies, University of Messina, 98125 Messina, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to Concetta Crisafulli, ccrisafulli@unime.it Received 15 November 2010; Accepted 19 February 2011 Academic Editor: Oscar Fernandez Copyright © 2011 Rosalia D’Angelo et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Multiple sclerosis (MS) disease is carried through inflammatory and degenerative stages. Based on clinical feaures, it can be subdivided into three groups: relapsing-remitting MS, secondary progressive MS, and primary progressive MS. Multiple sclerosis has a multifactorial etiology with an interplay of genetic predisposition, environmental factors, and autoimmune inflammatory mechanism in which play a key role CC-chemokines and its receptors. In this paper, we studied the frequency of CCR5 gene Δ32 allele in a cohort of Sicilian RR-MS patients comparing with general Sicilian population. Also, we evaluate the association between this commonly polymorphism and disability development and age of disease onset in the same cohort. Our results show that presence of CCR5Δ32 is significantly associated with expanded disability status scale score (EDSS) but not with age of disease onset. 1. Int