Genetic Markers for Thrombophilia and Cardiovascular Disease Associated with Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS) with an unknown etiology, although genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors are thought to play a role. Recently, coagulation components have been shown to provide immunomodulatory and pro-inflammatory effects in the CNS, leading to neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. The current study aimed to determine whether patients with MS exhibited an overrepresentation of polymorphisms implicated in the coagulation and whether such polymorphisms are associated with advanced disability and disease progression. The cardiovascular disease (CVD) strip assay was applied to 48 MS patients and 25 controls to analyze 11 genetic polymorphisms associated with thrombosis and CVD. According to our results, FXIIIVal34Leu heterozygosity was less frequent (OR: 0.35 (95% CI: 0.12–0.99); p = 0.04), whereas PAI-1 5G/5G homozygosity was more frequent in MS (OR: 6.33 (95% CI: 1.32–30.24); p = 0.016). In addition, carriers of the HPA-1a/1b were likely to have advanced disability (OR: 1.47 (95% CI: 1.03–2.18); p = 0.03) and disease worsening (OR: 1.42 (95% CI: 1.05–2.01); p = 0.02). The results of a sex-based analysis revealed that male HPA-1a/1b carriers were associated with advanced disability (OR: 3.04 (95% CI: 1.22–19.54); p = 0.01), whereas female carriers had an increased likelihood of disease worsening (OR: 1.56 (95% CI: 1.04–2.61); p = 0.03). Our findings suggest that MS may be linked to thrombophilia-related polymorphisms, which warrants further investigation.