The germline repertoire of T cell receptor beta-chain genes in multiple sclerosis patients from Spain.

Recently several reports have described contradictory results after studying the association between restriction fragments length polymorphisms (RFLP) of T cell receptor (TcR) beta-chain genes and multiple sclerosis (MS). We studied the allelic, genotypic and haplotypic distribution of RFLPs of TcR beta chain gene segments C beta, V beta 8 and V beta 11 in 97 unrelated multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, 11 with chronic progressive MS and 86 with relapsing/remitting (R/R) MS. We found the distribution of the TcR haplotypes defined by the alleles of the three loci studied in the MS patients was significantly different from that found in control individuals. The distribution of TcR haplotypes in R/R MS patients was also different from that observed in controls. Our data suggest that the TcR beta chain gene complex contains one or more genes involved in genetic susceptibility to develop MS.