Chromosome 17q22-q24 and multiple sclerosis genetic susceptibility

Recently, genome-wide searches for multiple sclerosis (MS) susceptibility genes have suggested that the chromosome 17q22–q24 region might contain susceptibility genes in two sets of families of different ethnic backgrounds (Finnish and British). Therefore, we decided to test this region in two sets of families of different ethnic backgrounds (American and French), but collected according to the same diagnostic criteria. All lod-score values were non-significant. Moreover, we could exclude that the 17q22–24 region might contain a gene increasing the sibling recurrence risk of MS over 1.4, rendering the existence of such a gene very unlikely, at least in the group of tested families.