Polymorphic investigation within the region of several sex hormone genes for association with multiple sclerosis within an Australian case-control population

Title of Presentation: Polymorphic investigation within the region of several sex hormone genes for association with multiple sclerosis within an Australian case-control population. Methodology To examine polymorphisms within the region of several sex hormone genes for an association with multiple sclerosis within an Australian case-control population. A test group of 210 unrelated multiple sclerosis patients, of Caucasian origin, and 210 controls, matched for ethnicity, sex and age (+/- 5 years) were included in the study. Several polymorphisms of a number of sex hormone genes were genotyped by restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. Statistical analysis of genotype and allele frequencies included Hardy-Weinberg law and conventional contingency table analysis incorporating the standard chi-squared test for independence. Progress to Date or Results Allelic and genotype frequencies produced interesting associations between the case and control groups for one of the tested polymorphisms. Further testing is currently underway to validate our results, which will be swiftly published upon conclusion of analysis. Conclusions The results indicate that one of the polymorphisms may be associated with multiple sclerosis, and we are therefore confirming our results at present with another marker. Furthermore, we cannot exclude the hypothesis that other polymorphic alleles of the remaining candidate genes could be implicated in MS susceptibility. Therefore we will also be performing further investigations into the polymorphic alleles of the remaining candidate genes in the near future.