Introduction

The present invention relates to a nucleic acid coding for a variant of the EBNA2 for use as a biomarker for predicting the risk of developing MS (multiple sclerosis) and/or for screening and/or for the diagnosis and/or prognosis of the disease, and to an in vitro method for predicting the risk of developing and/or for screening for MS and/or for the diagnosis and/or prognosis of the disease, comprising the detection of the presence of said nucleic acid.

Technical features

Multiple sclerosis is a complex disease characterized by the interaction between environmental and genetic factors. There are no optimal treatments: current treatments reduce the risk of relapse, but they present safety and tolerability problems. A correlation has been identified between relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) and the 1.2 allele (and other variants we have discovered) of the Epstein-Barr virus nuclear antigen 2 (EBNA2), and a higher frequency of 1.3B allele in healthy people. This is designed to define the risk of getting sick of the socio-economic impact. The EBNA2 variants that we have identified can be used to design new drugs capable of targeting the virus in its interaction with cellular proteins.

Possible Applications

• Prediction of the risk of developing multiple sclerosis;
• Diagnosis and treatment of inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system and autoimmune diseases, in which the Epstein-Barr virus is involved as an etiological and / or pathogenetic factor;
• Identification of primers and / or probes or as antigenic compounds.

Advantages

• Possibility of developing specific therapeutic approaches for viral variants;
• Contribution of the classification of EBNA2 variants to the development of assessment protocols (in combination with other information / biomarkers);
• Integration with clinical practice;
• Disease prevention.