Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 6, 2026

Author Spotlight: Genetic Profiling for Fluorouracil Response in Gastric Cancer
Published on: May 10, 2024
Associations between MTHFR Ala222Val polymorphism and risks of hepatitis and hepatitis-related liver cancer: a
Ruiying Zheng1, Wenyuan Zhao, Dongwei Dai
1Department of Infectious Diseases, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, 168 Changhai Road, Shanghai, 200433, China.
Abstract:
Chronic infection of viral hepatitis is the main cause of liver cancer. There were many studies assessing the associations of methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) Ala222Val polymorphism with risks of hepatitis and hepatitis-related liver cancer, but no consistent results were reported. To investigate the associations of MTHFR Ala222Val polymorphism with risks of hepatitis and hepatitis-related liver cancer, we performed a meta-analysis of published case-control studies. Eligible studies were searched from PubMed and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases. The odds ratio (OR) and corresponding 95 % confidence interval (95 %CI) were used to assess the associations. Twenty-one individual studies with a total of 8,187 subjects were included. Overall, MTHFR Ala222Val polymorphism was not significantly associated with risks of liver cancer, hepatitis-related liver cancer, and non-hepatitis-related liver cancer. However, MTHFR Ala222Val polymorphism was significantly associated with risk of hepatitis infection (Val vs. Ala: OR = 1.15, 95 %CI 1.01-1.32, P = 0.03; ValVal/AlaVal vs. AlaAla: OR = 1.37, 95 %CI 1.11-1.68, P = 0.003). Therefore, MTHFR Ala222Val polymorphism is significantly associated with risk of hepatitis infection but not liver cancer. More studies are needed to further assess the association between MTHFR Ala222Val polymorphism and hepatitis-related liver cancer.
Related Concept Videos
Pharmacogenetic Phenotypes: Alterations in Pharmacokinetics, Drug Targets and Biologic Milieu
Effect of Hepatic Disease on Pharmacokinetics: Pathophysiologic Assessment and Liver Function Test
Hepatitis
Pharmacogenetics of Phase II Enzymes: N-acetyltransferase, Thiopurine S-methyltransferase, UDP-glucuronosyltransferase
Pharmacogenetics of Drug Targets: β₂-Adrenergic Receptors, Apo E, Thymidylate Synthase
Pharmacogenomics: Identification of New Drug Targets
