Environment, Genetics Trigger Multiple Sclerosis

posted on Sep 19 by Brian in the Disability News, Health, Multiple Sclerosis category

Multiple sclerosis results from a complex influence of genetics and environment. This interaction is what researchers with the UC Irvine Multiple Sclerosis Research Center are striving to define. Understanding the trigger(s) will not only eventually lead to a cure, but also can help in the short-term by offering ways to personalize therapies and treatments.

“We’ve taken a giant first step toward understanding this,” said study leader Dr. Michael Demetriou, a UCI neurologist and associate director of the Multiple Sclerosis Research Center. Demetriou and colleagues identified how certain environmental factors like metabolism and vitamin D₃ (obtained through either sunlight exposure or diet) interact with certain genes and converge. A critical cellular function is altered, and the neurodegenerative disease develops.

Specifically, four genes are involved — interleukin-7 receptor-alpha, interleukin-2 receptor-alpha, MGAT1 and CTLA-4 –- and the critical cellular function that’s altered is how specific sugars are added to proteins. Virtually all cell-surface proteins are modified with complex sugars to help form a molecular “net” that controls clustering, signaling, and receptors like the immune system T-cell. If these proteins’ sugar-modification is reduced, the “net” is weakened and neural degeneration begins. The researchers also discovered that a dietary supplement known as N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc, a simple sugar related to glucosamine) is able to suppress this process.

Production of those complex sugars is regulated by both metabolic and enzymatic functions. A genetically at-risk person’s metabolism can affect the amount of sugars attaching to proteins, thus being a factor in whether MS develops. Their enzymatic functions can be altered by the genetic risk factors and vitamin D₃, which also may or may not lead to MS. The research has narrowed down to this mystery, and so this is what Dr. Michael Demetriou and his team are trying to crack.

Their research may open up entirely new areas of medicine and hope, as these sugars have also been implicated in diabetes and cancer.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110531115313.htm