Association between hepatitis C virus infections and Toll-Like Receptor 3 Gene polymorphism, Erbil city

Introduction: Globally, hepatitis C virus (HCV) has infected about 180 million people by 2019. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that 71 million people worldwide are infected with chronic HCV. HCV is considered as a main public health problem globally, and recently it has been observed that the prevalence of this virus is declining but still populations with asymptomatic chronic HCV exists. The main objective of the present study was to determine the effects of TLR3 gene single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) on the susceptibility of HCV infections in Erbil city of Iraq. Materials and Methods: For this purpose, samples were collected from many private hospitals, which included 50 samples from patients with HCV and 10 samples as controls from healthy people. The sample followed molecular techniques for determining toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3) SNP. Finally, the results were analyzed using Chromas-Pro software. Results: The results of the present study showed that both age and gender have a crucial role in HCV infection. About 66% of the HCV patients were males and 64% of patients were above 40 years. Conclusion: The results concluded that there was a significant relation between TLR 3 SNP (rs78726532 polymorphism) and the risk of HCV infection in population of Erbil city.