OX40 Gene Expression and its Serum Levels in New Cases of Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease of human central nervous system (CNS). OX40 (CD134) is a member of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor family. Ligation of OX40 is crucial for clonal expansion of antigen-specific T-cells as well as survival and generation of T-cell memory. Soluble OX40 is the soluble form of OX40 and it has been demonstrated that it is correlated with some autoimmune disorders. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to investigate serum levels and gene expression of OX40 as a paraclinical marker in MS patients compared to the healthy control group. METHODS: In this research, 40 new cases of MS patients and 40 healthy people as control group were investigated. After extracting RNA from peripheral blood and cDNA synthesis, we examined gene expression using real-time PCR technique, and serum level of soluble OX40 was measured by commercially available ELISA kit. Additionally, Mann-Whitney test was used to compare the gene expression and serum levels between two groups. RESULTS: We did not find any significant correlation between OX40 gene expression and MS disease (p = 0.715). Soluble OX40 serum levels of MS patients were not significantly different from the control group (P = 0.409). CONCLUSIONS: According to the results of the current study, expression of OX40 gene as an inflammatory factor in peripheral blood and also serum levels of OX40 could not be considered paraclinical markers of this disease.