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The efficacy of interferon-beta therapy in multiple sclerosis patients: investigation of the RORA gene as a predictive biomarker

The Pharmacogenomics Journal volume 20, pages 271–276 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease characterized by inflammatory neuronal damages and consequent disabilities. Episodic relapses of the disease which lead to brain lesions and irreversible neurological dysfunctions could be decreased by the interferon-beta (IFN-β) therapy in most of the MS patients. However, the efficiency of the drug response is highly variable among patients and the precise mechanism of action of the IFN-β is not clear. To investigate the role of RORA gene as a biomarker of patient’s responsiveness, the present study have analyzed the frequency of two polymorphisms (rs4774388 and rs11639084) within this gene between responder (n = 105) and nonresponder (n = 65) groups of MS patients in comparison with 200 healthy controls. The tetra primers-Amplification Refractory Mutation System-PCR method was used for genotyping. The obtained result of the current study showed a significant association between nonresponsiveness and the rs4774388 in dominant model (p = 0.03). However, the allele and genotype frequencies of rs11639084 were not different between controls, nonresponder, and responder patients. In addition, the frequencies of the estimated haplotype blocks were not different between examined groups. The obtained results of the present study suggested the rs4774388 as a possible effective factor in determination of response to IFN-β. However, further studies are needed to confirm the results in a larger sample size.

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Acknowledgements

The current study was supported by a grant from Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Phytochemistry Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Seyed Abdulmajid Ayatollahi & Rezvan Noroozi

  2. Department of Chemistry, Richardson College for the Environmental Science Complex, The University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

    Seyed Abdulmajid Ayatollahi

  3. Department of Medical Genetics, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Soudeh Ghafouri-Fard & Rezvan Noroozi

  4. Urogenital Stem Cell Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Mohammad Taheri

Authors
  1. Seyed Abdulmajid Ayatollahi
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  2. Soudeh Ghafouri-Fard
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  4. Rezvan Noroozi
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Contributions

SAA supervised the study. SG-F contributed in data analysis and paper writing. RN performed the experiments and wrote the paper. MT designed and supervised the study.

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Correspondence to Mohammad Taheri or Rezvan Noroozi.

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Ayatollahi, S.A., Ghafouri-Fard, S., Taheri, M. et al. The efficacy of interferon-beta therapy in multiple sclerosis patients: investigation of the RORA gene as a predictive biomarker. Pharmacogenomics J 20, 271–276 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41397-019-0114-0

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