Genetic association between interleukin-18 gene polymorphism (rs5744292 a/g) and susceptibility to chronic hepatitis b virus infection

Haleh Sarrafnia,1,* Seyed reza mohebbi,2 Fatemeh ashrafi,3 Shabnam kazemian,4 Armin hosseini razavi,5 Mohammad reza zali,6

1. Department of Biology, Tehran North Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2. Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases Research Center, Research Institute for Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Shahid
3. Department of Biology, Tehran North Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
4. Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases Research Center, Research Institute for Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Shahid
5. Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases Research Center, Research Institute for Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Shahid
6. Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases Research Center, Research Institute for Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Shahid

Abstract

Introduction

Hepatitis b infection is a global health problem disease.hepatitis b virus (hbv) may cause different clinical outcomes due to the difference in host immune factors and variations in host genetic background such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (snps). interleukin-18 known as an ifn-γ -inducing factor that can stimulate th1 cells.il-18 is a proinflammatory cytokine that plays a significant role in both innate and adaptive immune responses. the purpose of this study is to investigate the probable relation between interleukin-18 gene single nucleotide polymorphism (rs5744292) with the outcome of chronic hepatitis b virus infection.

Methods

A total of 110 chronic hepatitis b virus-infected patients and 110 healthy controls were involved in this case-control study. dna was extracted by salting out method and single-nucleotide polymorphism of the il-18 gene was analyzed by the pcr-rflp method and data were compared in both groups.

Results

The results showed rs5744292 genotype frequencies of aa=80.9%, ga=18.2% and gg=0.9% in chronic patients and aa=77.3%, ga=21.8% and gg=0.9% in the control group. results revealed that there is no difference in genotype (p value=0.796) and allele (p value=0.643) frequencies between two groups.

Conclusion

The functional importance of il-18 could be a useful candidate to affect the progression of hbv infection; in spite of, this study indicates that il-18 gene polymorphism (rs5744292 a/g) may not be involved in the susceptibility to chronic hbv infection. other il-18 snps are likely more remarkable than the one studied in chronic hbv infection, however; more studies are required to investigate the relevance of the current findings.

Keywords

Interleukin-18, hepatitis b, single nucleotide polymorphism