Department of Microbiology, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi-110 002, India.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the XVIII National Conference of Indian Virological Society at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India, December 11–13, 2008.
The development and resolution of an inflammatory process is regulated by a complex interplay among cytokines that have pro and anti-inflammatory effects. Effective and sustained action of a proinflammatory cytokine depends on synergy with other inflammatory cytokines and antagonism of opposing cytokines that are often highly expressed at inflammatory sites. Regulatory mechanisms that control the production of cytokines include genetic polymorphism in particular promoter/leader region. Polymorphisms may directly or indirectly affect the binding of transcriptional factors, consequently increasing or decreasing the production of mRNA, thus regulating cytokine production. The Objective is to determine the polymorphism of tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin-10 genes in chronic hepatitis C patients. Forty HCV RNA positive patients were included in the present study attending the medical –OPD and wards of Lok Nayak Hospital, a tertiary care hospital in New Delhi during 2006–2008. Twenty-five healthy controls were also included in the study. Genomic DNA was extracted by using QIA amp DNA blood kit protocol according to manufacture's instruction and desired fragment was amplified by using the primer's of Vidigal et al. 2002. Genotyping of -308-promoter variant of TNF-á was performed by PCR. Polymorphism in the TNF-á G/G, G/A and A/A allele was not different between HCV patients and healthy controls. IL-10 variants (C/T, C/C) were more frequent among HCV patients as compared with healthy controls. These results from the genetic polymorphism analysis on IL-10 promoter have indicated that the distribution pattern of IL-10 polymorphism was significantly different between controls and HCV patients. Furthermore, the polymorphism in the promoter region of TNF- á (−308) was found though the difference was not significant. Since this is the preliminary study on small sample size, we believe that our findings may stimulate further studies on larger no. patients. and more no. of sample will be analyzed to assess the association of these polymorphism in HCV infected patients. These results from the genetic polymorphism analysis on IL-10 promoter have indicated that the distribution pattern of IL-10 polymorphism was significantly different between controls and HCV patients. However, at present, these markers are of little clinical importance as the numbers of samples are very less. Hence they should be further validate on the huge no of samples before using as predictive markers.
