RAGE polymorphisms are not associated with risk of multiple sclerosis in Iranian population

Multiple sclerosis (MS) as a chronic demyelinating disorder has been related with advanced glycoxidation end products (AGEs). Receptor for AGEs (RAGE) in encoded by a gene which contains several functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). In this investigation, we have genotyped two SNPs within this gene in 376 MS patients and 400 healthy individuals. No significant difference was detected in genotype and allele frequencies of rs184003 between cases and controls. Primarily, the rs1800625 was associated with MS risk in recessive model. However, after correction for multiple comparison, the association did not reach the level of significance. The four estimated haplotypes were similarly distributed between MS patients and healthy subjects. Consequently, our study excludes the role of mentioned SNPs in conferring risk of MS in Iranian patients. However, other SNPs within this gene might influence the risk of MS. So future genotyping of other functional variants within this gene are necessary to unravel the role of RAGE in MS.