A new study published in the October issue of Nature Genetics has found evidence for a new genetic influence on multiple sclerosis using a computational strategy designed to find risk variants that differ strikingly in frequency across human populations. Omar Khan, M.D., a professor in the WSU Department of Neurology, participated in the study, which was a collaborative work with the Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California-San Francisco.

"This is the first time that a potential gene has been identified on a specific chromosome, which appears to be related to MS," Dr. Khan said. "The implications are huge."

The study compared genetic regions in African-American individuals with MS vs. healthy individuals used in a control group. Although a dozen centers participated in the study, WSU School of Medicine recruited nearly one-third of the patients for the study.

The new computational approach used showed greater power to detect weak factors contributing to disease risk than traditional methods. This method could be useful for identifying risk factors for other common diseases, such as lupus, end-stage renal disease and type 2 diabetes.

The study, "A whole-genome admixture scan finds a candidate locus for multiple sclerosis susceptibility," appeared with another study presenting a high-resolution map of a genetic region previously associated with MS susceptibility in Canadian and Finnish people who have MS. The authors of that study refined the boundaries for genetic association and found that the primary risk is associated with a class of genes involved in mediating immune reaction to foreign proteins that cells take up from their environment.

For more on these studies, please visit http://www.nature.com/ng/index.html.