Abstract： Objective To explore the association between tumor necrosis factor receptor associated factor 6 (TRAF6) polymorphisms and the susceptibility to sepsis. Method Haplotype tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (htSNPs) were selected from the HapMap database. The htSNPs were genotyped in 255 patients with sepsis and 260 control subjects by the Beckman SNP stream genotyping platform. The association with susceptibility to and severity of sepsis were estimated by logistic regression with adjustment for age, sex, smoking, drinking,chronic diseases status, APACHE Ⅱ score and critical illness. Results Of 13 TRAF6 ANPs, 7 were tagged by htSNPs. Of them, 5 htSNPs (rs5030496, rs5030411, rs5030416, rs5030445 and rs3740961) were used for final genotyping analysis. Genotype frequencies of those htSNPs were conformed to the Hardy-Weinberg law in both patients and controls. There were no significant association found between the 5 htSNPs and susceptibility to sepsis.Also, there was no significant association between the TRAF6 polymorphisms and the septic shock, death from sepsis as well as organ dysfunction. Conclusions The TRAF6 gene polymorphisms might not play a major role in severity of sepsis.