IL12B and cancer: Because of these pleiotropic activities of IL-12, dozens of molecular epidemiologic studies have explored the influences of IL-12 polymorphisms on susceptibility of various cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma [14–19], colorectal cancer [13, 20, 21] and gastric cancer [22–24], etc. The most commonly fascinating loci were rs3212227 in IL-12B gene, rs568408 and rs2243115 in IL-12A genes, perhaps owing to their function to influence IL-12 gene expression, reduce protein synthesis, and subsequently result in cancer.