Multiple Sclerosis Contributors Found in Proteome-Wide Association Study

A research team from West China Hospital of Sichuan University and other centers in China searched for multiple sclerosis contributors through a two-stage proteome-wide association study. As they report in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, the investigators considered data from a 41,505-participant multiple sclerosis genome-wide association study, analyzed in concert with proteomic profiles generated for two studies of the brain's dorsolateral prefrontal cortex region. From 18 genes coding for proteins showing multiple sclerosis-associated expression shifts in both the discovery and confirmation stages of the study, they incorporated genetic risk variant and gene expression clues to focus in on a handful of genes with altered expression in the brain's white matter or gray matter. From these and other findings, the authors point to potential ties between multiple sclerosis risk and dysregulation of genes such as SHMT1, FAM120B, and ICA1L. "Our findings shed new light on the pathogenesis of [multiple sclerosis] and prioritized promising targets for future therapy research," they write.