Abstract

BackgroundMultiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex autoimmune disease in which both the roles of genetic susceptibility and environmental/microbial factors have been investigated. More than 200 genetic susceptibility variants have been identified along with the dysbiosis of gut microbiota, both independently have been shown to be associated with MS. We hypothesize that MS patients harboring genetic susceptibility variants along with gut microbiome dysbiosis are at a greater risk of exhibiting the disease. We investigated the polygenic risk score for MS in conjunction with gut microbiota in the same cohort of 117 relapsing remitting MS (RRMS) and 26 healthy controls. DNA samples were genotyped using Illuminas Infinium Immuno array-24 v2 chip followed by calculating polygenic risk score and the microbiota was determined by sequencing the V4 hypervariable region of the 16S rRNA gene. ResultsWe identified two clusters of MS patients, Cluster A and B both having a higher polygenic risk score than the control group. The Cluster B with the higher polygenic risk score had a distinct gut microbiota, different than the Cluster A. MS group whose microbiome was similar to that of the control group despite a higher genetic risk score than the control group. This could be due to i) the non-active state of the disease in that group of MS patients at the time of fecal sample collection and/or ii) the restoration of the gut microbiome post disease modifying therapy to treat the MS. ConclusionOur study showed that there seems to be association between polygenic risk score and gut microbiome dysbiosis in triggering the disease in a small cohort of MS patients. The MS Cluster A who have a higher polygenic risk score but microbiome profile similar to that of healthy controls could be due to the remitting phase of the disease or due to the effect of disease modifying therapies.