Correlation between TNF-α-238 gene polymorphism and hepatitis B virus reactivation in patients with malignant tumors after chemotherapy

Abstract

Objective To investigate the correlation between the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α) gene promotor-238 and hepatitis B virus (HBV) reactivation in patients with malignant tumors after chemotherapy. Methods Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism assay (PCR-RFLP) was used to detect the SNP at TNF-α-238 site among 100 malignant tumor patients with HBV infection. HBV-DNA levels in patients were detected before and after chemotherapy. HBV reactivation was defined as that HBV-DNA level greater than 10-fold increase compared with before chemotherapy or higher than 1×109 logcopies/ml. Results The quantification of HBV-DNA was higher after chemotherapy than before chemotherapy 〔(3.02±0.68) logcopies/ml vs. (2.49±0.23) logcopies/ml, t=-7.383, P=0.000〕. Among the patients with malignant tumor and HBV infection, the genotype frequency of G/A was higher in HBV reactivation group than in non-reactivation group after chemotherapy 〔27.3% (6/22) vs. 3.8% (3/78), χ2=11.499, P=0.001〕. Conclusions HBV reactivation is associated with TNF-α-238 gene polymorphism in malignant tumor patients with HBV infection after chemotherapy. Key words: Tumor necrosis factor-alpha; Hepatitis B virus; Virus activation