Could be NCOA5a Novel Candidate Gene Playing a Role in MS Disease Susceptibility?

Abstract Background Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory immune-mediated demyelinating disease which characterized a challenging and disabling condition. It is known that environmental and genetic factors play a role in directing the disease state. Recent studies have shown that nuclear cofactor genes may play a role in the MS pathogenesis. NCOA5 is a nuclear receptor coactivator independent of AF2 that modulate ERa-mediated transcription. NCOA5 gene is also involved in the pathogenesis of various diseases such as psoriasis, Behçet's disease and cancer. Methods and Results We were investigated the relationship between the NCOA5 gene rs2903908 polymorphism and MS disease on 157 unrelated MS patients and 160 healthy controls by RT-PCR. The frequency of CC, CT, and TT genotypes was 19.87%, 37.82%, and 42.31% for the MS group while 5.63%, 43.75%, and 50.62% control group, respectively. In the obtained results, CC genotype and C allele were found to be significantly higher in the patient group (p = 0.0002 and 0.003, respectively). In particular, the fact that the CC genotype was found to be significantly higher in the patient group compared to the control group (p = 0.0002) and that it had a statistically significantly higher OR value (OR,95%CI = 4.16, 1.91–9.05) suggests that the C allele may recessively predispose to the MS disease for this polymorphism. Conclusions These results suggest for the first time in the literature that, the NCOA5 gene may have an effect on the occurrence MS disease through different molecular pathways which discussed in the manuscript.