الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 223 |  |  |
| | | from | 223 | | |
Abstract
The cytokine tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) is important in generating an immune response against a hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The functions of TNF-α may be altered by single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in its gene structure. This study hypothesized that SNPs in TNF-α may be important in determining the outcome of an HCV infection. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the possible role of the functional polymorphism located in the promoter region of TNF-α gene (-308G/A) in the progression of HCV infection in Egyptian patients using a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The distribution of TNF- α (-308G/A) polymorphism and its impact on serum level of TNF-α was compared in 90 HCV infected patients (categorized into 45 patients with HCV-induced cirrhosis and 45 HCV-related hepatocellular carcinoma HCC) and 45 normal healthy Egyptian volunteers without any history of liver disease. Our results showed that the alleles at the TNF-α -308 position in studied population indicates that the frequency of the G/G (78.5%) is higher than G/A (13.3%) or A/A (8.1%). Serum levels of TNF- α was statistically elevated in HCV-infected patients than control group indicating that TNF-α -308 polymorphism does not influence the production of TNF- α and HCV-infection was recorded. Taken together, these findings suggest that TNF- α codon -308 polymorphism may not be a host genetic factor associated with severity of HCV infection and could be considered as an independent risk factor for HCC.kjk