Case Control Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 14, 2015; 21(14): 4232-4239
Published online Apr 14, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i14.4232
Interleukin-21 gene polymorphisms and chronic hepatitis B infection in a Chinese population
Jia-Yan Yao, Kang Chao, Min-Rui Li, Yan-Qing Wu, Bi-Hui Zhong
Jia-Yan Yao, Kang Chao, Min-Rui Li, Yan-Qing Wu, Bi-Hui Zhong, Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510080, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Yao JY wrote the manuscript and performed the data analysis; Yao JY, Li MR and Wu YQ performed the majority of experiments; Chao K and Yao JY designed the research; Zhong BH revised the paper.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81170392.
Ethics approval: The study was reviewed and approved by the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Data sharing: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Bi-Hui Zhong, MD, PhD, Division of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, No. 58 Zhongshan Road II, Guangzhou 510080, Guangdong Province, China. sophiazhong@medmail.com.cn
Telephone: +86-20-87755766 Fax: +86-20-87332916
Received: October 30, 2014
Peer-review started: October 31, 2014
First decision: November 26, 2014
Revised: December 19, 2014
Accepted: February 16, 2015
Article in press: February 16, 2015
Published online: April 14, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: This study is the first to investigate the relationship between single nucleotide polymorphism rs13143866 of the interleukin-21 gene and chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in a Chinese population. We found that genotypes rs13143866 AA and rs2221903 TC were risk factors for carrying HBV, and the ATA haplotype (rs13143866, rs2221903 and rs907715) increased the risk of HBV-related hepatocellular carcinoma.