MIR196A2 rs11614913 C > T polymorphism correlates with an increased risk of hepatopulmonary syndrome in liver cirrhosis: a case–control study in China

Objective This case–control study is designed to explore the relationship between microRNA-196a2 (MIR196A2) rs11614913 C > T polymorphism and the risk of hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS) in liver cirrhosis. Methods From January 2013 to January 2015, 163 liver cirrhosis patients with HPS (case group), 264 liver cirrhosis patients without HPS (control group), and 195 healthy people (normal group) were selected. A DNA extraction kit was used to extract plasma DNA from peripheral blood. Polymerase chain reaction–restriction fragment length polymorphism was used to detect the allele and genotype frequencies of MIR196A2 C > T polymorphism. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction was adopted to detect the relative expression of MIR196A. Results The frequencies of C allele in the case group were higher than those in the control and normal groups (all P   T polymorphism was closely associated with an increased risk of HPS in patients with liver cirrhosis. Compared with the normal group, the relative expression of MIR196A in the case group was significantly increased (P   0.05). In the case group, compared with patients carrying the TT genotype, the relative expression of MIR196A of patients carrying the C allele (CT + CC) evidently increased (P < 0.05). Conclusions The MIR196A2 rs11614913 C > T polymorphism may contribute to an increased risk of HPS in liver cirrhosis patients.