Investigation of p2x7 Receptor Expression in Multiple Sclerosis Patients (Systematic Review)

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune inflammatory disease of the nervous system which is demyelinating neurons.MS usually occurs at the age of 20-50 and is more common in women than men. P2x7 receptor (p2x7R) which is expressed neurons plays a role in regulation of inflammatory processes. Furthermore studies have shown that p2x7R is involved in the pathology of MS, so the aim of this study is to checking the expression of p2x7R in MS patients. This review was performed within articles published at PubMed, Google scholar, Cochrane and SID from 2000 to 2019. The keywords were p2x7 receptor, multiple sclerosis, expression. By searching this database, 74articles were found, 36 of them were not related with investigating and 28 of them by reading abstract were removed. All articles chosen from English and Persian articles. Finally, 10 articles were included in our study, in 9 of them reported the expression of p2x7R inmicroglial of patients with MS was increased. In more than 95% of cases, this receptor inhibited the activity of ATP and significantly reduced the ability of phagocytes the neuron cells. In addition, in one of the studies that MS patients were treated with Glatiramer acetate (GA),it was concluded expression of P2X7R in these persons reduced compared to the control group, which showed the effect of GA on inhibiting the P2X7R expression. However, in one study was showed that the expression of P2X7R declined during the acute phase of MS disease.Conclusion: It seems the expression of p2x7R increase in MS patient and other inflammatory processes, so we can use p2x7R as a diagnostic and therapeutic method. Therefore, need to be more research done at this topic.