Host genetic background affects the course of infection and treatment response in patients with chronic hepatitis B
Section snippets
Background
Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is present in more than 350 million people worldwide [1], and might progress to fibrosis, cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma [2]. Evaluation of liver damage by needle biopsy or non-invasive methods, such as elastography, is crucial to estimating chronic liver disease outcomes.
Covalently closed circular (ccc) DNA, a reservoir and episomal form of the HBV genome, cannot be efficiently eradicated with current treatment options, including pegylated
Objectives
The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of host genetic background within the NTCP, FXRα, HNF1α, HNF4α, and TDP2 genes on treatment response and liver fibrosis progression in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB).
Patients
The study group included 136 patients with CHB who were admitted to the Department of Infectious Diseases, Medical University of Gdansk, and the Hepatology Outpatients Clinic Pomeranian Centre for Infectious Diseases and Tuberculosis in Gdansk in 2014-2016. Chronicity was defined as persistence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and anti-HBc antibodies (IgG type) for at least 24 months prior to enrolment. Blood tests, including alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity, HBsAg, HBeAg,
Study group characteristics
The study group constituted 136 patients with CHB, whereas the control group included 100 healthy volunteers. Baseline characteristics of the enrolled individuals are shown in Table 1. Patients treated with NA were significantly older and had higher levels of HBV DNA, ALT, and liver fibrosis stage than the patients treated with PEG-IFNα. HBeAg-positivity was more frequent in NA-treated than in PEG-IFNα-treated patients. Out of 136 treated patients, 12 (9%) became HBsAg-negative after treatment,
Discussion
Recently, a few novel genes that seem to be crucial for HBV infection and viral lifecycle have been described: NTCP [4], which is responsible for HBV attachment to hepatocytes, FXRα, which regulates the expression of NTCP [10], and TDP2, which is involved in viral cccDNA formation [18]. In this study, we showed that common polymorphic changes in host genes recently associated with HBV infection, TDP2 and NTCP, affect the course of CHB, particularly treatment response and in the case of TDP2,
Declaration of Interest
None.
Acknowledgements
This work was financed by the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR), grant no. INFECT-ERA/01/2014 and ST79 from the Medical University of Gdansk, and the MOBI4Health project, which is funded from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme under Grant Agreement no. 316094.
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