Genome-wide association study: new genetic insights into HBV/HCV-related hepatocellular carcinoma genomes

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third common cause of cancer-related death with highest prevalence in developing countries, such as Southeast China and Saharan African. The major pathogenic factors can be categorized into environmental effects and genetic variations, and it is mostly caused by hepatitis B or C virus (HBV and HCV). The geographic prevalence of chronic hepatitis B and C (CHB and CHC) varies, with HBV heavily-infected in developing countries and HCV prevalent in developed countries. The infection of either hepatitis virus B or C causes damage to the liver cells through cellular immune attack by the mechanism of inflammation. However, how liver cell injury progresses to HCC development is still poorly understood. Along with the maturation of genome-wide association study (GWAS) technology, the specific genetic mutations responsible for the progression from CHB or CHC to HCC have been identified. Moreover, the findings of similar studies for these variants are different from each other due to diverse populations. More functional experiments are warranted to confirm the precise roles of these genetic mutations in the correlations between HBV/HCV and HCC for the future clinical application.