Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 17, 2026

A Method of Trigonometric Modelling of Seasonal Variation Demonstrated with Multiple Sclerosis Relapse Data
Published on: December 9, 2015
Polymorphisms in vitamin D metabolism related genes and risk of multiple sclerosis
K Claire Simon1, Kassandra L Munger, Xing Yang
1Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA. ksimon@hsph.harvard.edu
Abstract:
The extent to which potential genetic determinants of vitamin D levels may be related to multiple sclerosis (MS) risk has not been thoroughly explored. The objective of this study was to determine whether polymorphisms in VDR, CYP27B1, CYP24A1, CYP2R1 and DBP are associated with the risk of MS and whether these variants may modify associations between environmental or dietary vitamin D on MS risk. A nested case-control study was conducted in two, large cohorts of US nurses, including 214 MS cases and 428 age-matched controls. Conditional logistic regression models were used to calculate relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and to assess the significance of gene-environment interactions. No associations were observed for any of the single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in VDR, CYP27B1, CYP24A1, CYP2R1 or DBP (p > 0.05 for all). The authors did observe an interaction (p = 0.04) between dietary intake of vitamin D and the vitamin D receptor FokI polymorphism on MS risk. The protective effect of increasing vitamin D was evident only in individuals with the 'ff ' genotype (RR = 0.2, 95% CI: 0.06, 0.78; p = 0.02 for 400 IU/day increase). It was concluded that this does not support a role for the selected SNPs involved in vitamin D metabolism in the etiology of MS. The finding of a marginally significant gene-environment interaction requires replication in larger datasets, but suggests future genetic studies may benefit from considering relevant environmental context.
Related Concept Videos
Multiple Sclerosis l: Introduction
Pharmacogenetic Phenotypes: Alterations in Pharmacokinetics, Drug Targets and Biologic Milieu
Pharmacogenetics of Drug Metabolism: Overview
Principles of Pharmacogenetics: Types of Genetic Variants
Comparing Copy Number Variations and SNPs
Copy number variations or CNVs are the structural variations that cover more than 1kb of DNA sequence. The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), on the other hand, is a single nucleotide change or a point mutation that is found in more than 1%...
Pharmacogenetics of Drug Targets: β₂-Adrenergic Receptors, Apo E, Thymidylate Synthase