Tumor necrosis factor-alpha gene polymorphisms in children with multiple sclerosis

Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) is a cytokine implicated in the pat hogenesis of infectious and autoimmune disorders including multiple scleros is (MS). Childhood-onset MS presents some clinical and laboratory features differing from adult disease. We studied TNF-alpha - 238 G -->A and - 308 G -->A polymorphisms in 24 patients with childhood-onset MS using PCR-RFLP a nd compared them with healthy control subjects from the same population (n = 93). The genotypes and allele frequencies were not different between pati ent and control groups (p=0.348, 95%Cl, 0.28-1.92, chi (2)=0.10 and p=0.797 , 95%Cl, 0.312 - 2.285, chi (2) = 0.20 for - 238 and - 308 alleles, respect ively). Although the size of the study group is small, these results do not support a role for TNF-alpha gene polymorphisms in susceptibility to MS in children.