Association between TLR2, TLR4, and TLR5 genetic variants and the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma in Moroccan population

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common human malignancy and the fourth most frequent cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Toll-like receptors (TLRs), are known to play a key role in hepatocarcinogenesis through induction of inflammation. We aimed to investigate the association between TLR2 rs3804099, TLR4 rs4986790, rs4986791, and rs11536889 and TLR5 rs5744174 and HCC risk in a total of 306 Moroccan subjects, including 152 HCC patient and 154 controls using a TaqMan allelic discrimination assay. Our result showed that the frequency of TLR4 rs11536889 C allele was higher in control group than in HCC patients (OR = 0.52, 95% CI = 0.30-0.88, p = 0.01). Moreover, under the dominant model, we observed that CG/CC genotypes were protective factors against HCC risk (OR = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.28-0.91, p = 0.02). However, no significant differences were found in the allele and genotype frequencies of TLR4 rs4986790 and rs4986791, between HCC patients and controls. Similarly, genotypic frequencies of TLR2 and TLR5 polymorphisms did not differ significantly between HCC patients and controls. However, TLR4 haplotype analysis revealed that ACC haplotype may be protective of HCC risk in patients with HCC (OR = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.31-0.92, p = 0.02). In conclusion, our result suggest that TLR4 rs11536889 polymorphism and ACC haplotype may decrease risk of hepatocellular carcinoma in Moroccan population

Keywords:

• Liver cancer
• Toll-like receptors
• Single nucleotide polymorphism

Acknowledgments

We are deeply grateful to all the patients and healthy controls who participated in our study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine of Casablanca in 2004 and Ethics Committee of the Ibn-Rochd university hospital, Casablanca (2018/DRH/SAJS/426) in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by research grant from the Actions Concertées Inter Pasteuriennes (ACIP 2017).