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Immunoglobulin GM and KM genotypes in hepatitis C virus infection
Author(s) -
Vejbaesya Sasijit,
Tanwandee Taweesak,
Pandey Janardan P.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of medical virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 121
eISSN - 1096-9071
pISSN - 0146-6615
DOI - 10.1002/jmv.20102
Subject(s) - hepatitis c virus , genotype , virology , asymptomatic , antibody , virus , immunology , polymerase chain reaction , viral disease , hepatitis c , liver disease , medicine , biology , gene , genetics
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major health problem, affecting over 170 million people worldwide. HCV causes a wide spectrum of liver disease, varying from persistent to asymptomatic infection. To evaluate the role of immunoglobulin (Ig) GM and KM genes in HCV infection, 191 HCV‐infected Thai subjects were studied. These included 43 individuals with transient HCV infection and 148 individuals with persistent chronic HCV infection. The controls consisted of 134 healthy individuals. Several GM and KM alleles were determined by polymerase chain reaction‐based methods. The frequency of G1M(f) homozygotes was lower (52.4% vs. 64.2%, P = 0.03) and the frequency of G1M(z) homozygotes was higher (10.5% vs. 3.7%, P = 0.02) in patients than the respective frequencies in controls. These results suggest that GM genotypes make a significant contribution to the risk of acquiring HCV infection. J. Med. Virol. 73:384–386, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.