Vitamin D Receptor and Its Influence on Multiple Sclerosis Risk and Severity: From Gene Polymorphisms to Protein Expression

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a multifactorial neurodegenerative disease. Low levels of vitamin D are a risk factor for MS and alterations in the vitamin D receptor (VDR) might be a risk factor as well. This study aimed to evaluate whether the VDR rs731236 (Taq-I) and rs4334089 (HpyCH4V) gene polymorphisms and VDR protein expression are associated with MS risk and severity. Vitamin D plasma levels were analyzed in a group of patients. Additional analyses of VDR protein expression and vitamin D levels of patients with different forms of MS (MSSS VDR protein contents do not change between MS patients and healthy controls and between patients with different MS severity, vitamin D levels decrease in parallel with an increase in MSSS.

Keywords

• multiple sclerosis
• vitamin D
• <i>VDR</i>
• polymorphism