A POSSIBLE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN MULTIPLE-SCLEROSIS AND HRES-1, AND ENDOGENOUS RETROVIRAL ELEMENT RELATED TO THE HUMAN T-CELL LEUKEMIA VIRUSES

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.