Study by Society-supported Researchers Hints at Why Men Tend to Get MS Less Often Than Women

A happy mistake in the lab of immunologist Melissa Brown, PhD (Northwestern University) has led to an important new discovery that might help explain why men get MS less frequently than women, and may ultimately lead to a whole new treatment approach for people with MS. Dr. Brown and her National MS Society-supported team were conducting lab studies to understand the effect of a genetic mutation that prevented female mice from getting an MS-like disease. When male mice with this mutation were accidently used, the researchers saw that, unlike females, it caused them to get worse disease.Instead of scrapping the results, Dr. Brown focused on their possible meaning. The team found that this mutation knocks out a biological pathway that uses an immune messenger protein, called “IL-33,” that is normally stimulated by testosterone.  When females were given IL-33, they were surprisingly protected from developing MS-like disease. Dr. Brown has successfully leveraged the discovery to gain a new research grant from the National Institutes of Health. 

• Read a news item about these results
• Read the scientific abstract in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

 

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