interferon-λ genetic variations and hepatitis c: yet to be discovered

Interferon-λ Genetic Variations and Hepatitis C: Yet to be Discovered

The association of genetic factors with treatment induced hepatitis C clearance in Pakistani patients was recently demonstrated by Tipu et al. (1). They evaluated the impact of different genetic variants in interferon-λ (IFNL) genomic region on treatment induced hepatitis C clearance. The study was remarkable regarding the investigation of several numbers of single nucleotide polymor-phisms (SN...

Non-Transfusion-Dependent Thalassemia: A Complex Mix of Genetic Entities Yet to Be Fully Discovered

The management of patients with non-transfusion-dependent thalassaemia (NTDT) has been a challenging task: in fact, within this conventional definition, clinicians have to deal with a great variety of syndromes mixed in terms of their molecular background, clinical course, and severity which share only the characteristics that are not entirely dependent on transfusions [1, 2]. In fact, NTDT phe...

Should acute viral C hepatitis be treated with interferon?

The Role of Interferon-λ Locus Polymorphisms in Hepatitis C and Other Infectious Diseases.

Since its discovery in 2003, the type III interferon-λ (IFN-λ) family has been found to contribute significantly to the host response to infection. Whilst IFN-λ shares many features with type I IFN induction and signalling pathways, the tissue-specific restricted expression of its receptor, IL28RA, makes IFN-λ a major mediator of host innate immunity in tissues and organs with a high epithelial...

Interferon Resistance of Hepatitis C Virus Genotypes 1a/1b: Relationship to Structural E2 Gene Quasispecies Mutations

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) envelope glycoprotein-2 (E2) inhibits the interferon (IFN)–induced, double –stranded RNA activated protein kinase (PKR) via PKR eukaryotic initiation factor-2α phosphorylation homology domain (PePHD). Present study examined the genetic variability of the PePHD in patients receiving interferon therapy. The PePHD region from HCV genotype 1a/1b infected patients receiving I...

How Many Genetic Variants Remain to Be Discovered?

A great majority of genetic markers discovered in recent genome-wide association studies have small effect sizes, and they explain only a small fraction of the genetic contribution to the diseases. How many more variants can we expect to discover and what study sizes are needed? We derive the connection between the cumulative risk of the SNP variants to the latent genetic risk model and heritab...