Furthermore, compared to preceding studies [15,40,41], we only included SNPs in or near the IL2RA gene associated with MS and did not include IL2RA SNPs associated with other autoimmune diseases which resulted in inclusion of the well-established SNP rs2104286 and the newly discovered SNP rs11256593 near the IL2RA gene from the MS-replication chip study [29]. Here, IL2RA is linked to autoimmune disease.