%0 Journal Article %T Study of polymorphisms in the interleukin-4 and IL-4 receptor genes in a population of Brazilian patients with multiple sclerosis %A Quirico-Santos %A Thereza %A Suppiah %A Vijayaprakash %A Heggarty %A Shirley %A Caetano %A Regina %A Alves-Leon %A Soniza %A Vandenbroeck %A Koen %J Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatria %D 2007 %I Academia Brasileira de Neurologia - ABNEURO %R 10.1590/S0004-282X2007000100005 %X this study aimed to investigate in a population of brazilian patients with multiple sclerosis (ms) single-nucleotide polymorphisms (snp) in the promoter region of il4 (*33c-t) and receptor il4r (*q551r a-g) genes proposed to interfere with disease progression. no significant differences were observed in either of the snps investigated between healthy controls (n=135) and ms patients (n=129). however, the il4+33 tt genotype was significantly (p=0.039) higher in african descendants ms (af-ms= 9.09%) than in caucasian ms (ca-ms= 1.35%). it was also observed a significant (p=0.016) increase for the il4r* q551r cc genotype in af-ms compared to those of caucasian ethnicity (af-ms= 21.62%; ca-ms= 4.35%). these results suggest that il4+33 and il4r*q551 polymorphisms may have a disease-promoting role of th2 mediators in african ms descendants. additionally neither il4 nor il4r genes are susceptibility factors for brazilian ms but may be able to modify ethnicity-dependent disease risk and penetrance of susceptibility factors. %K multiple sclerosis %K interleukin-4 %K il-4 receptor %K single nucleotide polymorphism %K ethnicity. %U http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S0004-282X2007000100005&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en