TY - JOUR JF - ibbjorg JO - IBBJ VL - 3 IS - 1 PY - 2017 Y1 - 2017/1/01 TI - Impact of Genetic Variants in Mir-122 Gene and its Flanking Regions on Hepatitis B Risk TT - N2 - MicroRNAs are small non coding RNAs that are involved in gene expression regulation. Mir-122 was reported to inhibit hepatitis B virus (HBV), but little is known about the role of mir-122 polymorphisms on HBV infection development. This present study aimed to investigate the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in mir-122 gene region with HBV infection. Study cases were HBV positive and negative individuals. 67 SNPs in mir-122 gene and its flanking regions were analyzed by sequencing method. mirVas software was used to assay the impact of polymorphisms on the secondary structure of mir-122 gene. 66 out of 67 studied SNPs were monomorphic and rs 17669 was the only polymorphic SNP in the studied population, with the T allele being four times more frequent than the C allele. However, there was no significant difference in alleles distribution between patient and control groups. Rs 17669 variant located near the mir-122 gene showed the highest impact for centroid, maximal expected accuracy, and minimal free energy structures in the arm, flank, and flank regions of mir-122, respectively. Therefore, rs17669 variant was predicted to exert an effect on mir-122 stability. The study of larger samples from different ethnicities may help to find a possible association between rs17669 genotype and HBV infection. SP - 1 EP - 7 AU - Fattahi, Sadegh AU - Karimi Alivije, Mohammad AU - Babamahmoodi, Farhang AU - Bayani, Masomeh AU - Sadeghi-Haddad-Zavareh, Mahmoud AU - Asouri, Mohsen AU - Lotfi, Maryam AU - Amirbozorgi, Galia AU - Gholami, Morteza AU - Akhavan-Niaki, Haleh AD - Department of Genetics KW - Mir-122 KW - HBV KW - single nucleotide polymorphism KW - rs17669 KW - mirVas UR - http://ibbj.org/article-1-88-en.html ER -