de/ihg/snps.html). The differences in categorical variables were evaluated using the chi-square test. Serum levels of HBV DNA and ALT with skewed distribution were adjusted to normal distribution by transformation into logarithmic function, and then tested by Student��s t test or analysis of variance. For the selleck chem inhibitor main effects of the SNPs, unconditional logistic regression model was conducted to compute an OR and the 95% confidence interval (95% CI), adjusted for age and gender, respectively. Since HCC is more frequent in men than in women, we stratified our study subjects into gender groups and evaluated the associations of each SNP with HCC risk separately. Contributions of each SNP, its multiplicative interaction with gender, and the multiplicative gene-gene interactions to HCC risk in all study subjects or in the HBV-infected subjects were evaluated using multivariate regression analyses.

Contributions of each SNP and its multiplicative interaction with HCC-related HBV mutations to HCC risk in the HBV-infected subjects with HBV sequencing data were also evaluated by multivariate regression analyses, adjusted for covariates including HBV mutations. The HBV mutations in the EnhII/BCP/PC region and those in the preS region were separately evaluated in the multivariate regression analyses because the two HBV fragments were only amplified from partially overlapped fractions of the HBV-infected subjects. All statistical tests were two-sided and performed using SPSS 16.0 for Windows (SPSS, Chicago, IL). A P value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant.

P values were corrected by the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Results Age, gender, and HBV infection-related parameters of study subjects are described in Table S2. In brief, HBV natural clearance subjects and healthy controls were older than the HBV-infected subjects including the HCC patients. The HBV-HCC patients were older and had a higher proportion of men compared to the HBV-infected subjects without HCC. In contrast to serum levels of viral load and ALT, the infection with HBV genotype C and HBeAg seroconversion were more frequent in the HBV-HCC patients than in the HBV-infected subjects without HCC. The differences in viral loads were not significant among ASCs, the CHB patients, and the LC patients after Bonferroni correction (cutoff P value: 0.010).

Associations of the pri-miR-34b/c and pre-miR-196a2 Polymorphisms with HCC and Other HBV-related Properties The genotype distributions of pri-miR-34b/c rs4938723 AV-951 and pre-miR-196a2 rs11614913 in healthy controls, HBV natural clearance subjects, HCC-free HBV-infected subjects, and HBV-infected subjects with HCC are shown in Table 1. The genotype frequencies for the SNPs in the 4 groups of the study subjects were all conformed to HWE, either in men or in women (P>0.05 for each).