HLA-DPB1 Variant Effect on Hepatitis B Virus Clearance and Liver Cirrhosis Development Among Southwest Chinese Population

Background: previous studies have shown that genetic variants in hla-dp genes affect disease progression in hepatitis b virus (hbv) infection. objectives: we aimed to evaluate possible association between hla-dpb1 rs9277534 polymorphism and different clinical complications of hepatitis b virus (hbv) infection. materials and methods: snapshot assay was used to investigate the association of rs9277534 polymorphism in 342 patients with persistent hbv infection and 342 age and gender-matched hbv spontaneous clearance controls. patients were categorized into asymptomatic hbv carriers (asc, n = 104), chronic hepatitis b (chb, n = 116), and liver cirrhosis (lc, n = 122) subgroups. results: there was a significantly higher proportion of the rs9277534 minor allele a in hbv spontaneous clearance control than that in hbv persistent infection group (or = 0.58, 95%ci = 0.46-0.73, p < 0.0001). genotypic analysis showed that ga and aa genotypes were associated with hbv spontaneous clearance (ga: or = 0.56, 95%ci = 0.40-0.79, p = 0.019; aa: or = 0.24, 95%ci = 0.14-0.44, p < 0.0001). a significant difference was found between asc and lc groups in the distribution of aa genotype (or = 9.32, 95%ci = 1.293-67.14, p = 0.027). conclusions: variant at rs9277534 could affect both the spontaneous clearance of hbv infection and progression from asymptomatic hbv carriers to hbv-related liver cirrhosis in southwest han chinese population.