Abstract
Human Ficolin-2 (L-ficolins) encoded by FCN2 gene is a soluble serum protein that plays an important role in innate
immunity and is mainly expressed in the liver. Ficolin-2 serum levels and FCN2 single nucleotide polymorphisms were
associated to several infectious diseases. We initially screened the complete FCN2 gene in 48 healthy individuals of
Vietnamese ethnicity. We genotyped a Vietnamese cohort comprising of 423 clinically classified hepatitis B virus patients
and 303 controls for functional single nucleotide polymorphisms in the promoter region (-986G.A, -602G.A, -4A.G) and
in exon 8 (+6424G.T) by real-time PCR and investigated the contribution of FCN2 genotypes and haplotypes to serum
Ficolin-2 levels, viral load and liver enzyme levels. Haplotypes differed significantly between patients and controls (P = 0.002)
and the haplotype AGGG was found frequently in controls in comparison to patients with hepatitis B virus and
hepatocellular carcinoma (P = 0.0002 and P,0.0001) conferring a protective effect. Ficolin-2 levels differed significantly
between patients and controls (p,0.0001). Patients with acute hepatitis B had higher serum Ficolin-2 levels compared to
other patient groups and controls.The viral load was observed to be significantly distributed among the haplotypes
(P = 0.04) and the AAAG haplotype contributed to higher Ficolin-2 levels and to viral load. Four novel single nucleotide
polymorphisms in introns (-941G.T, -310G.A, +2363G.A, +4882G.A) and one synonymous mutation in exon 8
(+6485G.T) was observed. Strong linkage was found between the variant -986G.A and -4A.G. The very first study on
Vietnamese cohort associates both Ficolin-2 serum levels and FCN2 haplotypes to hepatitis B virus infection and subsequent
disease progression.