AUTHOR=Lill Christina M. TITLE=Recent Advances and Future Challenges in the Genetics of Multiple Sclerosis JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurology VOLUME=5 YEAR=2014 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2014.00130 DOI=10.3389/fneur.2014.00130 ISSN=1664-2295 ABSTRACT=

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common auto-inflammatory disease of the central nervous system, affecting more than 2 million individuals worldwide. It is a genetically complex disease, in which a substantial part of a person’s liability to develop MS is caused by a combination of multiple genetic and non-genetic (e.g., environmental) risk factors. Increasing this complexity, many of the involved risk factors likely interact in an intricate and hitherto ill-defined fashion. Despite these complexities, and owing greatly to the advent and application of large-scale genome-wide association studies, our understanding of the genetic factors underlying MS etiology has begun to gain unprecedented momentum. In this perspective, I will summarize some recent advances and outline future challenges in MS genetics research.