Background: Hemoglobin can develop abnormally as a result of hereditary blood illnesses called thalassemia that are inherited from a person's parents. Objective: The goal of this study was to identify the tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) A/G polymorphism and correlate TNF-α serum levels with illness progression.
Patients and methods: Eighty cases with beta-thalassemia who had been diagnosed at the thalassemia center at Al-Zahra Hospital in Al-Najaf province, Iraq participated in a case-control study with 40 healthy individuals serving as the control group. The 80 individuals were divided based on HCV status. From 50 seropositive hepatitis C virus (HCV) patients, 19 had IgG positivity, 15 had IgM positivity, and 16 had both IgG and IgM positivity. All patients and the control group had blood samples taken. DNA from blood was taken to be utilized in PCR to find the TNF-α A/G polymorphism. TNF-α levels were assessed using an ELISA test.
Results: The findings explained why HCV-infected individuals had high significant rates of thalassemia than non-infected ones. The findings showed that in thalassemia patients, AA genotype and A allele are risk factors for severity, whereas GG genotype and G allele are protective factors for severity.
Conclusions: The findings showed that having an AA genotype increases your chance of contracting HCV. This study also demonstrated a considerably higher level of TNF-α in thalassemia patients compared to controls, as well as a significantly higher level of TNF-α in thalassemia patients who also had HCV infection compared to controls and patients without HCV infection.