Amount Awarded: $25,000
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease that affects the central nervous system. Genome-wide association studies have identified a large number of genetic variants that each contributes a small risk to overall disease risk. There is an ongoing collaboration between the research groups of Prof. Barcellos and Prof. Harbo, respectively at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Oslo, where we collaborate for analyzing genome-wide differences in DNA methylation and transcription of immune cells between MS patients and healthy controls. Students and researchers from Oslo have previously visited Berkeley, and we have one published paper and one paper to be submitted within this summer. For the current described project, the Berkeley research group has identified at least 30 MS-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that reside in/near 30 vitamin D receptor binding sites. To evaluate whether these SNPs have any impact on vitamin D response in human immune cells, we now plan laboratory experiments in Oslo. This project application covers part of the laboratory expenses for the experiments described and funds researcher exchanges between Oslo and Berkeley. This project will expand our current collaboration further from genomics into molecular immunology.