T-cell activation and HLA-regulated response to smoking in the deep airways of patients with multiple sclerosis

1. Introduction 1. Introduction 2. Material and methods 3. Results 4. Discussion 6 References Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune, demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS) [1], with a largely unknown aetiology. International efforts have defined over 100 genetic loci modifying the risk for MS [2]. However, these genes only explain a fraction of the disease risk, suggesting an important contributory role of environmental factors [3]. One of the most established environmental risk factors for MS is cigarette smoking, with an estimated odds ratio (OR) of 1.51 for daily smokers compared to nonsmokers [4]. This risk factor is also shared with other autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), where a risk increase of a similar magnitu ...