Zeinab Shirvani Farsani - Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Faculty of life Sciences and Technology, Shahid Beheshti University G.C., Tehran, Iran.
Mina Rezai - Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Faculty of life Sciences and Technology, Shahid Beheshti University G.C., Tehran, Iran.
Shirin Farivar - Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Faculty of life Sciences and Technology, Shahid Beheshti University G.C., Tehran, Iran.

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic progressive inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS). There is an interest in potential biomarkers that could provide information predicting disease activity and progression. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been recently reported to participate in the regulation of immune responses. Here, we examined the expression levels of lncRNA PACER (p50-associated COX-2 extragenic RNA) in PBMCs from patients with MS compared with healthy subjects.Methods: For this study, we recruited 40 patients with MS according to the revised McDonald criteria and 33 healthy subjects. The expression levels of PACER gene were examined with Real time PCR method. Results: A significant increase was observed in expression of PACER in MS patients. Moreover, we found some significant correlations between lncRNA expression levels and clinical data of MS patients.Conclusion: Our results shed further light to the inflammatory aspects of MS with emphasis to the regulatory role of this lncRNA in the physiopathology of MS. However, the specific molecular mechanisms and biological functions of this lncRNA need further study.

PACER, Multiple sclerosis, long non coding RNA