The impact of genetic variability on liver disease in the Hispanic/Latin-American population

Abstract

Liver cirrhosis is within the top 10 causes of death in Latin-American countries and recent evidence suggests that Hispanics in the USA have a more aggressive course of many types of liver disease and show lower response to treatment of hepatitis C compared with other ethnic groups. Although environmental factors are very important, they do not appear to fully account for the observed ethnic differences in the incidence of cirrhosis and progression rates. Genome-wide association studies have been a powerful tool to identify genetic variants that directly confer susceptibility to liver disease. Here, we review the current knowledge on genetic variants associated with the most common types of liver disease that may contribute to ancestry-related differences in disease progression and mortality.

Keywords::

• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
• hepatitis C
• Mexican population
• PNPLA3
• IL-28B

Declaration of interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors are responsible for the content and writing of this paper.