Replication study of multiple sclerosis (MS) susceptibility alleles and correlation of DNA-variants with disease features in a cohort of Austrian MS patients

We performed a replication study in 883 Austrian multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and 972 control individuals for 25 previously risk-associated loci (39 SNPs). Two loci, rs1109670 (DDEF2/MBOAT2, p < 0.02) and rs16914086 (TBC1D2, p < 0.05), are replicated here for the first time. Furthermore, we tested all 39 SNPs for association with age at disease onset and measures of disease severity. We observed a trend for association of rs3135388 (HLA-DRB1*1501, p < 0.01), rs7090530 (IL2RA, p < 0.026) and rs1841770 (ZIC1, p < 0.017) with a younger age at MS onset and of rs12044852 (CD58, p < 0.035) with shorter time to reach EDSS6.