interferon gamma gene polymorphism (+874 t > a) and chronic hepatitis b in the population of gorgan, north-eastern iran

Background: based on differences in individual immune responses to the hepatitis b virus (hbv), between 5% and 10% of patients become persistently infected with the virus, which leads to the determination of chronic hbv. cytokines such as interferon gamma (ifn-γ) are secretory proteins that play important roles in both innate and adaptive immune responses. functional studies have demonstrated that the ifn + 874a/t gene polymorphism can increase or decrease the overall expression of ifn-gamma (γ) and ultimately determine the outcome of the infection.objectives: this study was performed to investigate the relationship between the ifn-γ + 874 gene polymorphism and susceptibility to chronic hbv infection.methods: polymorphism detection analysis was performed on 598 subjects from north-eastern iran. the ifn-γ gene polymorphism (+ 874a/t) was genotyped through a specific sequence primer polymerase chain reaction (ssp-pcr).results: the frequencies of the aa, at, and tt genotypes were 31%, 51%, and 18% in the chronic hbv patient group, and 40%, 45%, and 15% in the healthy control group, respectively. however, a lack of association of the + 874 polymorphism in the ifn-γ gene of those with chronic hbv infection was found. evaluation of hbv association with this polymorphism was significant under the dominant genetic model (p = 0.04).conclusions: ultimately, no association could be characterized between the polymorphism in ifn-γ + 874a/t and susceptibility to chronic hbv infection in this segment of the iranian population (p > 0.05).