a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 300 chronic HBV infection compared with 300 unaffected siblings from the same community

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and genes associated with susceptibility to hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection that have been identified by a genome-wide association study (GWAS) explain only a limited portion of the known heritability, indicating more genetic variants remain to be discovered. In this study, we adopted a new research strategy to identify more susceptibility genes and variants for HBV infection.