Hb. Rasmussen et al., A POSSIBLE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN MULTIPLE-SCLEROSIS AND HRES-1, AND ENDOGENOUS RETROVIRAL ELEMENT RELATED TO THE HUMAN T-CELL LEUKEMIA VIRUSES, Acta neurologica Scandinavica, 95, 1997, pp. 45-48
Objectives - To search for an association between the human endogenous
retroviral element HRES-1 and multiple sclerosis (MS). Material and m
ethods - Genomic DNAs were isolated from 87 MS patients and 158 health
y individuals. Fragments of HRES-1 were enzymatically amplified from t
hese DNA samples for subsequent examination by single-strand conformat
ional analysis to detect polymorphisms. Results - HRES-1 markers exclu
sively linked with MS were not found. However, the distribution of thr
ee HRES-1 alleles, previously defined on the basis of two markers, dif
fered statistically significantly between the MS group and the group o
f healthy individuals. Conclusion - Our results provide evidence of an
association between HRES-1 and MS.