Heredity and Ms

For many years I have had many symptoms of MS and was told I might have it, but never had all the necessary tests to confirm it.  I currently am experiencing symptoms and my daughter was just diagnosed with MS with lesions in cervical and thorasic.   I also have ankylosing spondylitis, my mother had inflammatory bowell disease, and my son has Reiter's.  What can anyone tell me about the genetics of MS and also any connection to the HLA-B27 (above diseases).?  Thanks.

[bhups1]

Hi, here is couple of quotations which might be informative to you:
“In the population at large, the chance of developing MS is less than a tenth of one percent. However, if one person in a family has MS, that person's first-degree relatives—parents, children, and siblings—have a one to three percent chance of getting the disease.
For identical twins, the likelihood that the second twin may develop MS if the first twin does is about 30%. For fraternal twins (who do not inherit an identical set of genes), the likelihood is closer to that for non-twin siblings, at about 4%. This pattern suggests that, while genetic factors clearly help determine the risk of MS, other factors such as environmental effects or random chance are also involved. The actual correlation may be somewhat higher than reported by these numbers as people with MS lesions remain essentially asymptomatic throughout their lives.
Further indications that more than one gene is involved in MS susceptibility comes from studies of families in which more than one member has MS. Several research teams found that people with MS inherit certain regions on individual genes more frequently than people without MS. Of particular interest is the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) or major histocompatibility complex region on chromosome 6. HLAs are genetically determined proteins that influence the immune system. However, there are other genes in this region which are not related to the immune system.

The HLA patterns of MS patients tend to be different from those of people without the disease. Investigations in northern Europe and America have detected three HLAs that are more prevalent in people with MS than in the general population. Studies of American MS patients have shown that people with MS also tend to exhibit these HLAs in combination—that is, they have more than one of the three HLAs—more frequently than the rest of the population. Furthermore, there is evidence that different combinations of the HLAs may correspond to variations in disease severity and progression.
A large study examining 334,923 single nucleotide polymorphisms (small variations in genes) in 931 families showed that apart from HLA-DRA there were two genes in which polymorphisms strongly predicted MS; these were the IL2RA (a subunit of the receptor for interleukin 2) and the IL7RA (idem for interleukin 7) genes. Mutations in these genes were already known to be associated with diabetes mellitus type 1 and other autoimmune conditions; the findings circumstantially support the notion that MS is an autoimmune disease.
Studies of families with multiple cases of MS and research comparing proteins expressed in humans with MS to those of mice with EAE suggest that another area related to MS susceptibility may be located on chromosome 5. Other regions on chromosomes 2, 3, 7, 11, 17, 19, and X have also been identified as possibly containing genes involved in the development of MS.
These studies strengthen the theory that MS is the result of a number of factors rather than a single gene or other agent. Development of MS is likely to be influenced by the interactions of a number of genes, each of which (individually) has only a modest effect. Additional studies are needed to specifically pinpoint which genes are involved, determine their function, and learn how each gene's interactions with other genes and with the environment make an individual susceptible to MS. Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_sclerosis

Please visit this site too http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/multiplesclerosis.html