No association between IRF3 polymorphism and susceptibility to hepatitis B virus infection in Chinese patients

AIM：To investigate the association between three tag single nucleotide polymorphisms （tagSNPs） in inter-feron regulatory factors （IRF3） and the genetic suscep-tibility to chronic hepatitis B virus （HBV） infection.METHODS：We performed a case-control study of 985 Chinese cases of chronic HBV infection and 294 self-limiting HBV-infected individuals as controls.Three tagSNPs in IRF3 （rs10415576,rs2304204,rs2304206） were genotyped with the Multiplex SNaPshot technique.The genotype and allele frequencies were calculatedand analyzed.RESULTS：The three SNPs showed no significant geno-type/allele associations with chronic HBV infection.Overall allele P values were：rs10415576,P=0.0908,odds ratio （OR） [95% confidence interval （CI）]=1.1798 （0.9740-1.4291）;rs2304204,P=0.5959,OR （95% CI）=1.0597 （0.8552-1.3133）;rs2304206,P=0.8372,OR （95% CI）=1.0250 （0.8097-1.2976）.Overall genotype P values were：rs10415576,P=0.2106;rs2304204,P=0.8458;rs2304206,P=0.8315.There were no statisti-cally significant differences between patients with chron-ic HBV infection and controls.Haplotypes generated by these three SNPs were also not significantly different between the two groups.CONCLUSION：The three tagSNPs of IRF3 are not asso-ciated with HBV infection in the Han Chinese population.