http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16738416/site/newsweek/

What a marvelous picture of a biochemical reaction where a gene is preserved from over-reacting in an immune response. Wow!

One thing, though, I think not all MS may be autoimmune. We talked of this on the old forum.

I think mine is primarily biochemical, that is, poisons have poisoned my brain surface (as well as some other targets) and made scars. Someone might say this is not MS, but in many respects it acts like it. That is, I have the myoclonus, the spasticity, the optic neuritis (former) the speech hesitation at times, the occasional manual dexterity deficit, the permanently weak arms, and many other MS things, including staggers if I get off the Swank diet.

Genetically, I have a great grandmother who was in a wheelchair and thought to have MS, but that was a while back, like early 20th century. Then I had a grandma from another line who had porphyria symptoms of the kind where the abdominal nerves are attacked and probably vascular spasm results. These two gave their mutated genes to four people, including me, who were dx'd with MS. Later, I was dx's with porphyria, as many of you know. Three other people in this lineup were dx'd with MS, but the others did not live past 50, due to various causes, or perhaps porphyria would have been dx'd in them too, or perhaps not. Is it two genes, or one? I think it is a case of MS being caused by a biochemical poison. I also had other relatives who suffered horrendously from the more typical abdominal spasms of porph and had few of the neuro results we generally associate with MS; but the ab spasms were likely mediated by the nerves. This disease, porph, can hit anywhere and everywhere in the body, and sometimes is very selective, as is seen in my family. All of my father's siblings had this disease in one form or another, having gotten it from a grandma and a mother on two different lines. My son and grandchildren seem not to have it, as I did not marry a person with the disease, and hence my son had a 50% chance not to have it. And if he does not have it and his wife does not, the grandkids don't have it. Hallellujah, a long line broken.

Just a little thinking about genetics.

Again, thanks for an interesting article and stupendous picture.

Mariel