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Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and the TNF receptor (TNFR) superfamily play very important roles for cell death as well as normal immune regulation. Dysregulation of TNF-TNFR superfamily gene expression will influence many biological processes, and contributes to human diseases, including cancer. We investigated the genetic alterations of the TNF-TNFR superfamily genes in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Several genetic alterations were detected in the 44 TNF-TNFR superfamily genes by sequencing hepatocellular carcinoma DNA samples. In particular, we found that the TNFR1 promoter -329G/T polymorphism was strongly associated with primary HCC (odds ratio [OR]=5.22, p=0.0007). We also observed frequent loss of heterozygosity at the polymorphic TNFR1 -329G/T site in the primary tumor tissues, indicating that the polymorphic TNFR1 -329G/T site is very susceptible to genetic alterations in HCC. Furthermore, in the polymorphic TNFR1 -329G/T site, the T allele resulted in the repression of TNFR1 expression. Therefore, our results suggest that TNFR1 -329G/T polymorphism may play an important role in the development of HCC.

In postgenomic era, searching and identification of disease genes associated with complex diseases are still one of the great challenge for dissecting human complex diseases. To improve the disease gene localization for complex diseases, a group of closely immune-mediated disease loci were overlapped on each chromosome based on previously reported genome-wide scanning data. Interestingly, five overlapping chromosomal regions (1q21, 2q33, 5q31.1-q33.1, 6p21, and 11q13) were identified by co-localizing disease loci for the following diseases: diabetes, asthma, atopic dermatitis, osteoporosis, and inflammatory bowel disease. The development of specific disease was associated with different combinations of disease loci among five overlapped chromosomal regions. Therefore, the analysis of multiple genetic loci should be considered to determine the effects of multiple genes responsible for complex diseases resulting from the influence of multiple genes.