Interleukin-10 gene promoter polymorphism and susceptibility to liver cirrhosis

Liver cirrhosis is the end-stage of various liver diseases, which has a poor prognosis and determined by deterioration of hepatic functional capacity and consecutive development of hepatic complications. We investigated the role of IL-10-592 A/C, IL-10-819 C/T and IL-10-1082 A/G gene polymorphisms on the development of liver cirrhosis.

A 1:2 matched case-control study was conducted, including 266 patients from 302 Military Hospital. Genotyping of IL-10-592 A/C, IL-10-819 C/T and IL-10-1082 A/G were performed in a 384-well plate format on the Sequenom MassARRAY platform.

Multivariate regression analyses showed that subjects carrying the IL-10-592 CC variant had a significant increased risk of liver cirrhosis (OR: 1.83, 95% Cl: 1.10-3.03), and IL-0-592 A/C showed a significant increased risk in recessive model (OR: 1.97, 95% CI: 1.15-3.45). We found those carrying IL-10-592 CC genotype had a heavy increased risk of liver cirrhosis in those with positive chronic hepatitis B, with an OR (95% CI) of 2.46 (1.35-4.42), and a significant interaction was observed between the IL-10-592 A/C genotype and chronic hepatitis B infection (P = 0.036). Those carrying IL-10-819 C/T and IL-10-1082 A/G variants had non-significant increased risk of liver cirrhosis.

Our study demonstrates that IL-10-592A/C gene polymorphism would enhance the risk for liver cirrhosis, and this gene variant has interaction with chronic hepatitis B infection in Asian population.