Hepatitis-related hepatocellular carcinoma: Insights into cytokine gene polymorphisms

Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) is a primary liver cancer, which is one of the most prevalent cancers among humans. Many factors are involved in the liver carcinogenesis as lifestyle and environmental factors. Hepatitis virus infections are now recognized as the chief etiology of HCC; however, the precise mechanism is still enigmatic till now. The inflammation triggered by the cytokine-mediated immune response, was reported to be the closest factor of HCC development. Cytokines are immunoregulatory proteins produced by immune cells, functioning as orchestrators of the immune response. Genes of cytokines and their receptors are known to be polymorphic, which give rise to variations in their genes. These variations have a great impact on the expression levels of the secreted cytokines. Therefore, cytokine gene polymorphisms are involved in the molecular mechanisms of several diseases. This piece of work aims to shed much light on the role of cytokine gene polymorphisms as genetic host factor in hepatitis related HCC.