micb gene expression on peripheral blood mononuclear cells and susceptibility to multiple sclerosis in north of iran

multiple  sclerosis  (ms) is  an  autoimmune  multifactorial  degenerative  disease  with detrimental affliction on central nervous system. mhc class i chain- related genea,b(mica and micb) are nonclassical human leukocyte antigens that can affect on some diseases and also on transplantation. the purpose of this study was to evaluate the mica and micb mrna expression in multiple sclerosis patients. in this study, we evaluated mica and micb mrna expression in  the  peripheral  blood  mononuclear  cells  by  reverse  transcryptase-polymerase chain reaction(rt-pcr) in ms patients and normal controls. the results of this study showed that 32.6% of patients with progressive clinical outcome over expressed micb genes in comparison with controls ( p=0.002). it is concluded that the high expression of micb gene in ms patients is an important criterion of ms disease that it may be due to the interaction between micb and its receptor on cd8+t or nk cells.