Association to the Glypican-5 gene in multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory, demyelinating disease affecting the central nervous system. MS-associated variants have been reported at both HLA and non-HLA loci, the latter including chromosome 13q31–32 and the Glypican-5 and Glypican-6 genes.In order to further explore the 13q31–32 region in MS, we genotyped 33 SNPs in 1355 Norwegian MS patients and 1446 Norwegian controls. An intronic SNP in the Glypican-5 gene (rs9523787) showed association with MS (pcorr = 0.006). Thus, this study supports that MS susceptibility at 13q31–32 may localize to the Glypican-5 gene, which should lead to further fine-mapping, replication and functional studies of this gene.