Background and Aim: Viral hepatitis B is one of the most prevalent infectious diseases which can lead to liver cirrhosis (LC) and hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC). Recent studies have shown an association between single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of interleukin 17 and inflammatory diseases. Inflammatory responses are important factors in the disease process, especially in the viral infections and chronicity or virus clearance from the body, and are closely dependent on the proper cytokine secretion from immune cells. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between IL-17 (rs763780) SNP and chronic Hepatitis B virus (HBV) Infection.

Material and Methods: Blood samples were collected from 150 patients with chronic HBV infection and 150 healthy individuals. Genomic DNA was extracted by salting out method. IL-17 (rs763780) polymorphism was determined by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) methods.

Results: Genotype and allele frequencies of rs763780 did not show any statistically significant difference between the patients and control groups.  Genotype frequencies were 84.6% for TT, 14.7% for TC and 0.7% for CC in the patients with chronic disease and 88%, 11.3% and 0.7% for TT, TC and CC in the control group respectively (p=0.69).

Conclusion: The results showed that there was no association between IL-17 SNP rs763780 and susceptibility to develop chronic HBV infection. It seems that genetic variations in other cytokine genes other than IL-17 gene, may affect progression of infection to chronic disease.

Keywords: Hepatitis B virus, Interleukin17, Single nucleotide polymorphism.

Received: Aug 16, 2015      Accepted: Nov 03, 2015