Genetic and protein biomarkers for risk and severity of multiple sclerosis

Aim and importanceIdentify genetic variants and lifestyle exposures associated with progression and severity of multiple sclerosis (MS) leading to an understanding of biological processes involved in progression and severity which will likely identify potential drug targets for treating progressive disease, a stage with few treatment options and the development of biomarkers for severity/progression of MS.Identify novel biomarkers for in MS, identifying different clusters of patients with different severity and response to treatment.

Enabling early identification of patients with different prognosis and more frequent objective follow up of MS patients leading to more efficient use of available treatment options and better quality of life for patients.Project organizationSamples from 11000 MS are available, the majority of which have been genotyped and answered a lifestyle questionnaire.

We will investigate association between genetic variants to measures of severity and progression of MS, potential biomarkers of severity, brain atrophy and proxies using drug prescription of symptomatic treatments of MS.

Improved Swedish genetic reference panel will allow imputation at near sequence quality improving precision of identified associations.

We will also use the new sensitive proximity extension assay to determine protein levels in plasma and CSF with the aim of identifying novel biomarkers for MS, severity/progression and response to treatment of MS.