CONCLUSION: Although new MS risk SNPs emerge rapidly, the discriminatory ability in a clinical setting will be limited.
We have known for many years that an allele of HLA-DR (common in white Northern Europeans) has been associated with a risk of development of MS. However, even without HLA-DR there was an increased, but small, risk for developing MS in people with 8 to 10 risk alleles. This underlines the current insight that multiple genes exert a small effect on developing MS on top of the major influence of HLA-DR.
However by investigating more and more of these risk alleles, using such models, it does not dramatically increase the ability to predict whether one will get MS and so simply adding in more and more low risk alleles into the equation does not make it more useful in clinical practice.
Therefore the genetic analysis has so far cost considerable funds but has yet to provide valuable practical information that has therapeutic application.
Another approach to improve MS prediction could be combining genetic with nongenetic risk factors such as infection with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), smoking, and serum vitamin D concentrations but I'll leave this for Prof G to discuss.