impact of apo lipoprotein e gene polymorphism on hepatitis c virus disease progression and response to direct acting antivirals in the egyptian population

Background: hepatitis c virus infection is a major health problem in egypt. apo lipoprotein e and lipid metabolism are closely associated with the life cycle of the virus and play an important role in facilitating this infection. objectives: to identify the role of apolipoprotein e gene polymorphism on hepatitis c virus disease progression and response to direct-acting antivirals (daas). methods: we included twenty patients with chronic hepatitis c virus infection (chc) from those who failed to respond to daas treatment and 76 subjects from responders. apo lipoprotein e genotypes were determined using pcr restriction enzyme fragment length polymorphism (rflp). results: apolipoprotein genotype e3/e3 was prevalent in 75.9% of patients. the distribution for the rest of genotypes was 16.9%, 3.6%, 2.4% and 1.2 % for apo e3/e4, e2/e3, e4/e4, and e2/e2 respectively. no statistically significant difference was found regarding any of the apo e genotypes with liver cirrhosis or response to therapy. conclusions: no significant impact for any apo e genotypes on chc disease severity or response to therapy with direct-acting antivirals was detected among egyptian patients.