The Role of CD279 and CD274 Gene Polymorphisms in Iraqi Patients with Multiple Sclerosis by using Real-time qPCR HRM Technique

Multiple sclerosis continues to be a major cause of neurological dysfunction, especially in young adults, due to the disease's extremely varied course and the development of persistent impairment in many patients. According to previous studies the PD-1 (CD279) and PD-L1 (CD274) genes play a crucial role in autoimmune diseases, so the genetic variations in these genes may be one of the factors affecting the occurrence of autoimmune diseases. Therefore, the current study aimed to determine the role of some genetic variations of PD-1 and PD-L1 in Iraqi MS patients. The number of samples for the current case-control study was 120. Blood samples were collected for the period November 2021 to February 2022 from the Medical City Hospital in Baghdad, DNA was extracted and the High-resolution melting (HRM) technique was used to determine the genetic variation. The genotype of CD279 (rs2227982) located in the 2KB upstream variant of the gene revealed that the heterozygous genotype and the mutant genotype were linked to an increased susceptibility to the disease whereas the T allele of CD274 SNP (rs1411262) and the mutant genotype (TT) were risk factors that increased the chance of susceptibility to the disease with a probability of predicting its occurrence. In conclusion, polymorphisms of both CD279 and CD274 genes were associated with increased risk and may act as predicting factors for MS in the Iraqi population.