Association between human herpesvirus 6 infection and inflammasome NLRP3 gene expression in multiple sclerosis Iraqi patients

Abstract Background Herpes 6 virus has been suggested as the best candidates in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis (MS), as the MS is multifactorial dieses required the contribution between two factors the environmental and genetic factors. On the other hand, inflammasomes are multiprotein platforms that playing a vital role in neuroinflammation in central nerve system and the activation of inflammasome Nod-like receptor pyrin domain-containing protein 3 (NLRP3) required several molecular patterns such as virus- associated DNA. Viruses that genomic material is DNA critical for this activation like herpesviruses so we study correlation between gene expression of inflammasome NLRP3 and sero-prevalence of human herpes virus 6 antibody in MS Iraqi patients. Results There was a no correlation between HHV6 antibodies with NLRP3 gene expression and ASC level ( P > 0.05) in the patients group, but the results of comparison of HHV-6 antibody (IgG and IgM) level among study groups revealed a significant difference ( P ≤ 0.001), the patients group have elevated level than healthy control, also there are a significantly difference in gene expression of NLRP3 and ASC protein among study groups, the greatest levels were found in untreated MS patients, followed by treated MS patients, and finally the control group; ( p = ≤ 0.001) and ( P = 0.004) respectively, the (AUC) for HHV-6 IgM was 0.802 and HHV-6 IgG was 0.768, there are no correlation between HHV6 antibodies with fold change of NLRP3 gene expression and ASC level ( P > 0.05). Conclusion the infection with HHV-6 have no effect on gene expression of inflammasome NLRP3.