Genetics

This blog post examines a multi-ancestry genetic study of multiple sclerosis susceptibility in people of South Asian and African ancestry living in the United Kingdom. It explains how genome-wide association analysis, HLA fine-mapping and polygenic risk scoring revealed substantial overlap with genetic risk factors previously identified in European populations, particularly within the major histocompatibility complex. At the same time, the findings demonstrate that allele frequencies, effect estimates and the predictive performance of European-derived risk scores differ across ancestral groups, emphasizing the need for larger and more representative genomic studies.