Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is the most common sexually transmitted
infection worldwide. Persistence infection can lead to the development of
cervical cancer potentially due to some genetic factors such as polymorphisms in
regulatory and coding regions of cytokine genes. The purpose of this study was
to determine whether there is a relationship between TNF-308 G/A or IL18
polymorphisms and high-risk HPV infection among sexually active women from
Burkina Faso. Ninety-one HPV infected and two hundred and nine HPV negative
women (the latter used as healthy controls) were screened. TNFA-308 G/A and
IL18-607 C/A polymorphisms were detected using the TaqMan allelic
discrimination. HPV 52 (21.19%), HPV 39 (11.86%) and HPV 33 (11.02%) were the
most common HPV genotypes. The TNFA-308A and IL18-607 C alleles were predominant
in all women in the study. None of the TNFA and IL18 alleles were associated
with HPV infection. The results suggest that there is no relationship between
TNF-308 G/A or IL18-607C/A polymorphisms and HPV infection among women in the
study.

Genotype; High risk HPV; IL18; Polymorphism; TNFα.