the influence of foxp3 treg cell gene polymorphism (rs3761548) on foxp3 gene expression in patients with chronic hepatitis b virus infection

Immune responses are pivotal in hepatitis b virus (hbv) infection, where regulatory t cells (treg) can contribute to sustaining the infection by suppressing immune responses. forkhead box p3 (foxp3) is the central regulator of treg cells. in this case-control study, we investigated the role of foxp3 -3279 (rs3761548) c/a polymorphism in the context of hbv infection. the study encompassed 140 healthy individuals as the control group and 70 individuals with chronic hepatitis b virus (chbv) as the case group. the rs3761548 polymorphism was analyzed using the restriction fragment length polymorphism-pcr (pcr-rflp) method. furthermore, we evaluated foxp3 gene expression in both hbv-positive and control groups using real-time pcr. the results revealed that the frequency of the aa genotype in the case and control groups was 52.9% and 44.3%, respectively, yielding an odds ratio (or) of 1.411 with a 95% confidence interval (ci) ranging from 0.793 to 2.509. however, this difference did not achieve statistical significance (p = 0.242). notably, the ac genotype was significantly more prevalent in the control group compared to the case group (p = 0.000). moreover, foxp3 gene expression was significantly higher in chbv infection cases compared to the control group (p = 0.000). these findings suggest that the observed polymorphism may play a role in the pathogenesis and persistence of hbv infection. nevertheless, further research is warranted to comprehensively investigate this phenomenon.