Relationships between interleukin-12B and interleukin-10 gene polymorphisms and hepatitis C in Chinese Han hemodialysis patients

Abstract

Background and Aims: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) commonly causes a chronic infection but portion of hemodialysis patients are able to resistant to HCV infection, even clear the virus naturally. Interleukin-10 (IL-10) and interleukin-12 (IL-12) are crucial regulators of the immune response to T-helper 1 (Th1) or T-helper 2 (Th2) categories and play a role in autoimmune and infectious diseases. This study was undertaken to investigate the possible association of genetic polymorphisms of 3′ untranslated region (3′UTR) of the IL-12B (−1188) and IL-10 (−592 and −819) and hepatitis C in Chinese Han hemodialysis (HD) patients. Methods: The genotyping of IL-12B 3′UTR and IL-10 −592 and −819 were performed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method. Results: Compared with the IL-12B-AA genotype, CC and combined CC/AC genotypes were associated with a significant decreased risk of HCV infection in Chinese hemodialysis patients (p < 0.001). However, the IL-10−592 and −819 genotypes were not found significant difference both between the anti-HCV (+) and anti-HCV (−) patients (p > 0.05) and the persistent infection and viral clearance HD patients (p > 0.05). Conclusions: The present study indicated that the polymorphisms of IL-12B 3′UTR might contribute to the susceptibility of HCV infection in Chinese HD population.

• Hepatitis C
• hemodialysis
• Interleukin-12B gene
• IL-10 gene
• polymorphisms

Declaration of interest

This work was supported by Project supported by the key lab of Jiangsu province MMB09KF04, Project supported by the Scientific Research Program of the Health Department of Jiangsu Province H200902 and XK16200903, Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China H0511-81070588, Project supported by the international cooperation projects of Jiangsu province BZ2010058 and Project supported by the funding of blue project 2010 and Peak Talent Funding in six fields of Jiangsu province 2010-175. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.