summary: This group from Germany performed a genetic association study of two Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) gene polymorphisms (rs744166 and rs2293152) in a large, independent German case-control sample of 5,904 subjects. They found a nominally significant, albeit weak association between rs744166 and MS susceptibility (odds ratio=1.09, P=0.012) in their sample which seems to support other recent genome wide association studies implicating STAT3 in MS susceptibility. Since STAT3 plays an important role in regulating the differentiation and proliferation of Th17 lymphocytes, the authors suggest that their results support the involvement of Th17 lymphocytes in MS.

authors: Lill CM, Schjeide BM, Akkad DA, Blaschke P, Winkelmann A, Gerdes LA, Hoffjan S, Luessi F, Dörner T, Li SC, Steinhagen-Thiessen E, Lindenberger U, Chan A, Hartung HP, Aktas O, Lohse P, Kümpfel T, Kubisch C, Epplen JT, Zettl UK, Bertram L, Zipp F.

source: Neurogenetics. 2011 Nov 18. [Epub ahead of print]

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