Impact of human genetic polymorphisms and HCV genome variation on the outcome of HCV-induced liver fibrosis / Amr Ali Hemeda ; Supervised Ramy Karam Aziz , Mohamed Salah Abdelhakeem , Marwa Ali Tammam

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Pharmacy - Department of Microbiology and Immunology

Complications of hepatitis C virus (HCV) chronic infection cause ~400,000 deaths worldwide annually. One complication, liver fibrosis, is influenced by host genetic factors. Genes influencing fibrosis include immune, metabolic, oxidative stress, and viral entry genes, such as interleukin 10 (IL- 10), microsomal triglyceride-transfer protein (MTP), superoxide dismutase-2 (SOD2), and apolipoprotein E (ApoE)-encoding genes, respectively. Thus, association of these genes with HCV-induced fibrosis represents an attractive biomarker. This study aimed to test whether polymorphism in IL-10, MTP, SOD2, and ApoE genes are associated with differential fibrosis induced by HCV genotype 4 (HCV-gt4) in a cohort of Egyptian chronic patients. A hundred blood samples were collected from fibrotic chronic HCV-gt4 patients, and genomic DNA was tested for polymorphisms by PCR-RFLP. The chi- square test was used to analyze the association between liver fibrosis severity, and genotype and allele frequencies. Additionally, the odds ratio (OR) for the risk of severe fibrosis development was statistically analyzed. Our analysis showed significant associations between severe fibrosis stages and high body mass index (BMI), low albumin level, high alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) level, low thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) level, and high alkaline phosphatse (ALP) level

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