THE GERMLINE REPERTOIRE OF T-CELL RECEPTOR BETA-CHAIN GENES IN MULTIPLE-SCLEROSIS PATIENTS FROM SPAIN

Recently several reports have described contradictory results after st udying the association between restriction fragments length polymorphi sms (RFLP) of T cell receptor (TcR) beta-chain genes and multiple scle rosis (MS). We studied the allelic, genotypic and haplotypic distribut ion of RFLPs of TcR beta chain gene segments Cbeta, Vbeta8 and Vbeta11 in 97 unrelated multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, 11 with chronic pro gressive MS and 86 with relapsing/remitting (R/R) MS. We found the dis tribution of the TcR haplotypes defined by the alleles of the three lo ci studied in the MS patients was significantly different from that fo und in control individuals. The distribution of TcR haplotypes in R/R MS patients was also different from that observed in controls. Our dat a suggest that the TcR beta chain gene complex contains one or more ge nes involved in genetic susceptibility to develop MS.