IL-10 and TNF-α polymorphisms and the recovery from HCV infection

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection becomes chronic in about 85% of infected individuals, whereas only 15% of infected people clear spontaneously the virus. It is conceivable that the host immunogenetic background influences the course of infection in term of recovery. Thus, in this study we have evaluated the effect of functionally relevant polymorphisms at tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha, i.e., 2 biallelic polymorphisms at nt -863 and nt-308 of the promoter) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) loci (i.e., 1 biallelic polymorphism at nt -1082 of the promoter), on the clearance of HCV infection. To this purpose, we compared 18 Sicilian patients who had spontaneously recovered from previous HCV …