Donostia Hospital discovers early diagnosis method for sclerosis

Researchers at the Multiple Sclerosis Unit of the Donostia Hospital in Donostia-San Sebastian, in collaboration with a bioinformatics team (Sistemas Inteligentes) from the University of the Basque Country, have published a study in the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS One) that for the first time links the expression patterns of molecules called microARN with multiple sclerosis.

This is a discovery that may lead to a new diagnostic tool, and a European patent has already been applied for. Multiple sclerosis is a neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system, and its origin is still unknown.

The disease appears in the form of attacks and there is no known cure. There are an estimated 75 cases per 100,000 of the population (in the Basque Country there may be more than 2,000 sufferers), it is particularly prevalent in young adults and, after epilepsy, it is the second most common neurological disease.

The research looked at 384 microARNs in three groups of people; patients who suffered severe attacks of multiple sclerosis, patients who had the illness but who did not suffer attacks, and healthy individuals (the control group).

“We found that the combination of 10 different microARNs can help to detect the illness. It is a great step forward”, explained David Otaegui, the director of the study, as it opens the door to the possibility of “developing new therapeutic targets and perhaps a blood biomarker that will complement current diagnostic tools.

The biomarker would be able to tell which people have developed the illness and when they suffer or have suffered an attack. In this way, effective prevention of the disease could be carried out and available treatments could be applied earlier, making them more effective”. In addition, the study “allows researchers to try to understand the disease. If we understand it better, we can improve treatment”.

The Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research (BIOEF), which manages the intellectual and industrial copyright of research going on in the Basque public health system, has filed an application for a patent to protect these results and the development of a potential commercial application for these findings, which will come “in the form of diagnosis kits for the illness in three to five years’ time”.

The research is the result of two years’ work of the laboratory of Dr. Otaegui (with the help of doctorate students Haritz Irizar and Maider Muñoz), of clinical research directed by the neurologist Javier Olascoaga in collaboration with the neurologist Adolfo López de Munain and the immunologist Álvaro Prada, all in Donostia Hospital, and also the researchers Iñaki Inza and José Antonio Lozano from the Artificial Intelligence group of the University of the Basque Country. The research group is currently replicating the study in a larger group of people to validate the conclusions they have obtained, and results of this study are expected to be in by the middle of 2010.