association of interleukin 13/+110 gene polymorphism with hepatitis b virus infection in golestan province, northern iran

Background:the most common primary cause of liver cancer is hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc). cytokines as mediators have significant roles in immune and inflammatory responses. interleukin13 (il13) is a potent pleiotropic cytokine. objectives:the aim of this study was to evaluate the association of il13/+110 gene polymorphism in patients with chronic hepatitis b virus (hbv), one of the most important factors that lead to the development of hcc. methods:dna was extracted from peripheral blood cells of all 585 participants including 302 unrelated hepatitis b surface antigen (hbsag) positives and 283 healthy matched groups. the il13 gene polymorphism (+ 110 a or g) was genotyped by ssppcr method and then genotype frequencies were checked by using the pearson’s chisquare test and/or fisher exact test. results:the frequencies of a/g genotype (ci = 1.18 2.34, or = 1.66, p = 0.004) and a/a genotype (ci = 0.95 3.53, or = 1.84, p = 0.071) were higher in the patients. also, the frequency of a allele was remarkably higher in the hbv patients than control group (ci = 1.09 1.79, or = 1.84, p = 0.071). conclusions:high frequency of a allele in patients rather than control group suggested that a allele probably plays a role in augmenting susceptibility to hbv infection risk and high frequency of g allele in controls suggested this allele has a protective role in this disease.