Study Of Genetic Association Between Candidate Genes Polymorphisms And Susceptibility To HBV And SARS-CoV Infection

Infectious disease is one of the global public health problems with high infectivity and mortality. Most infectious diseases are multifactorial and polygenic events with microbial, environmental and genetic components. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) chronic infection is the most serious and common infectious disease in China. The clinical course of HBV infection varies from spontaneous recovery after acute hepatitis to chronic persistent infection, including asymptomatic carrier, chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Host genetic factors may play important roles in disease progression of HBV infection, while it remains largely unknown. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a highly transmissible human infectious disease with significant morbidity and mortality and is caused by a newly identified coronavirus (CoV), SARS-CoV. The rapid transmission, high infectivity and unpredictable clinical progression make SARS a potential global threat, but its pathogenesis is still not fully clarified. Clinical investigations have shown that individual susceptibility to infection by SARS-CoV seems to be variable, i.e. for seropositive subjects for SARS-CoV may develop SARS or only have mildly symptomatic infections which cannot reach the criteria of SARS cases, and approximately 20% of SARS patients develop progressive pulmonary infiltrates and respiratory failure. Thus, it is conceivable that genetic variation may be an additional causation in individual's susceptibility to SARS or disease severity after SARS-CoV infection. In the present study, we performed case-control to assess whether there is an association between the polymorphisms of candidate genes, including IFN-γ, OAS-1, TNF-α and DC-SIGNR, and susceptibility to HBV or SARS-CoV infection in Chinese populations. The results may contribute to the pathogenesis underlying the HBV or SARS-CoV infection, and could lead to the improved treatment and prevention of these disorders.Firstly, we investigated the genetic association between IFN-γ T+874A and OAS-1 rs10774671 and the disease progression after HBV infection. Genotyping was performed by...