Polymorphic differences in SOD-2 may influence HCV viral clearance.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a pathogen causing chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, and liver cancer occurring in about 3% of the world's population. Most individuals infected with HCV develop persistent viremia. Oxidative stress may play an important role in the pathogenesis of a number of diseases including HCV infection and diabetes mellitus. Polymorphisms in the antioxidant genes may determine cellular oxidative stress levels as a primary pathogenic role in HCV and/or in its complications. Patients with HCV and normal, healthy controls were investigated for a superoxide dismutase (SOD-2) polymorphism in the mitochondrial targeting sequence with Ala/Val (C-9T) substitution. Polymorphisms in antioxidant gene SOD-2 were carried out by PCR, restriction fragment length polymorphism assays and by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. For the SOD-2 polymorphism, the RNA positive group showed a higher percentage of CT genotype than the RNA negative group (89.3% vs. 66.1%, P=0.001, (2)=11.9). The RNA negative group had more TT genotypes than the RNA positive group (27.4% vs. 6.80%, P=0.01, (2)=11.6). The exposed uninfected group had an increased frequency of the CT genotype (86.2% vs. 66.1%, P=0.02, (2)=5.5). The RNA positives had a higher frequency of the CT from the normal controls (72.1% vs. 89.2%, P=0.005, (2)=7.8). J. Med. Virol. 86:941-947, 2014. (c) 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.