Abstract:

Approximately 10% of individuals do not respond to hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination, i.e. non-responders (NRs). We aimed to investigate the association of interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-12B gene polymorphisms with responsiveness to the HBV vaccine in Korean infants. Among 300 healthy infants (9-12 month), SNPs for the IL-4 gene (rs2243250, rs2070874, and rs2227284) and for the IL-12B gene (rs3213094 and rs17860508) were compared between subgroups in terms of the response to HBV vaccination. The percentages of NRs (< 10 mIU/mL), low-titer responders (LRs, 10-100 mIU/mL), and high-titer responders (HRs, ≥ 100 mIU/mL) were 20.3%, 37.7% and 42.0%, respectively. No SNPs differed in frequency between NRs and responders or between LRs and HRs.

We divided the subjects into two groups according to the time interval from the 3rd dose of HBV vaccination to Ab quantification:

> 6 months from the 3rd dose (n = 87) and ≤ 6 months from the 3rd dose (n = 213). In the ≤ 6 month subjects, rs2243250C and rs2227284G were significantly frequent in the lower-titer individuals (NRs + LR) than HRs (40.1 vs. 25.9%, p = 0.014 and 45.1 vs. 33.0%, p = 0.018, respectively), and the rs2243250C and rs2227284G frequencies were significantly different among the three subgroups (13.2 vs. 26.9 vs. 25.9%, p = 0.040 and 15.5 vs. 29.6 vs. 33.0%, p = 0.038, respectively). In conclusion, those results suggest that IL-4 gene polymorphisms may play a role in the response to the HBV vaccine in Korean infants.