[Therapy monitoring in patients with multiple sclerosis based on transcriptomic analysis]

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a multifactorial immune mediated disease; its course and response to therapy is influenced by various genes. A goal of the biomedical MS research is the discovery of sets of predisposing genes of which differential expression predict the disease course and outcomes of drug therapy. Such knowledge would have direct consequences for selection, refinement or development of treatments. The genome-wide RNA profile of an individual represents one component of the comprehensive determination of disease- or drug response-related elements; it serves as a large-scale approach. This work reviews the state of the art in MS research applying genomewide screening methods at the transcriptome level in peripheral immune cells of humans.