Background: Several studies demonstrated that the genetic factor contributes a lot to the etiology of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Interleukin 12 (IL-12) plays an important role in the immune response to many viruses. As a functional SNP locus, IL-12B 1188A/C polymorphism (rs3212227) showed an effect on IL-12 production, which may indicate that this polymorphism may influence immune response to HBV during a natural infection.
Objective: To investigate whether the IL-12B 1188A/C polymorphism is associated with a risk of HBV infection in the Chinese Han population.
Material and methods: Our study was performed on 594 HBV-infected persons and 535 controls. Genotyping procedures for identifying the rs3212227 polymorphism were effected by the polymerase chain reaction – restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. Amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis was used to validate genotype results. 2 test was used to analyze association analysis.
Results: There was no statistically significant association between the IL-12B 1188 A/C polymorphism in HBV-infected persons and controls (for genotypes, 2 = 1.976, p = 0.372, df = 2, and for alleles, p = 0.623, OR = 0.959, 95% CI: 0.811-1.134).
Conclusions: Our results indicated that the IL-12B1188 A/C polymorphism was not associated with the development of HBV infection in the Chinese Han population.