Human hepatitis B virus (HBV) infects the liver of humans or humanoid primates. In humans, HBV infection often causes an inflammatory liver disease - hepatitis B. The virus is transmitted by perinatal, percutaneous and sexual exposure, as well as by close person-to-person contact. The latter occurs especially among young children, presumably by open cuts or sores. Vertical transmission from mot...

BACKGROUND Virus-specific cellular immune responses play a critical role in virus clearance during acute or chronic HBV infection. Currently, the commercially available HBV vaccine is combined with alum adjuvant, which stimulates mainly Th2 immune responses. Therefore, development of new therapeutic HBV vaccine adjuvants and immune strategies that also promote Th1 and CTL responses is urgently ...

introduction: hepatitis b is a potentially life-threatening infection that causes acute infection and chronic hepatitis with progression to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc). interleukin-12 (il12) is responsible for activation of th1 immune responses, leading to possible clearance of hbv infection from the host’s body. the host’s immune-genetic background plays an important role in t...

INTRODUCTION Occult hepatitis B virus (HBV) is defined by the presence of HBV DNA in patient sera in the absence of HBsAg. Occult HBV has been associated with hepatocellular carcinoma, reactivation during immune suppression, and transmission to others. While the hepatitis B vaccine is very effective at preventing chronic HBV infection, recent studies indicate it is less effective at preventing ...

Viral hepatitis is a major public health problem. While a prophylactic vaccine is now available for hepatitis B virus (HBV), an estimated 240–350 million people worldwide are persistently infected with HBV (1–3). There is not yet an approved vaccine to prevent hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, and between 130 and 200 million people are believed to be chronically infected worldwide (4–6). Untre...

During the first months of HIV infection, the virus typically evolves several immune escape mutations. These mutations are found in epitopes in viral proteins and reduce the impact of the CD8⁺ T cells specific for these epitopes. Recent data show that only a subset of the epitopes escapes, that most of these escapes evolve early, and that the rate of immune escape slows down considerably. To in...

Treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection could combine potent antiviral drugs and therapeutic vaccines to overcome immunological tolerance and induce the recovery phenotype to protect against disease progression. Conventional vaccination of woodchucks chronically infected with the woodchuck hepatitis virus (WHV) elicited differential T-cell response profiles depending on whether o...

Mutations that abrogate recognition of a viral epitope by class I-restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) can lead to viral escape if the CTL response against that epitope is crucial for viral clearance. The likelihood of this type of event is low when the CTL response is simultaneously directed against multiple viral epitopes, as has been recently reported for patients with acute self-limited ...

HBsAg clearance is associated with clinical cure of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Quantification of HBsAg may help to predict HBsAg clearance during the natural course of HBV infection and during antiviral therapy. Most studies investigating quantitative HBsAg were performed in HBV mono-infected patients. However, the immune status is considered to be important for HBsAg decline an...

Antibiotics continue to be used as growth promoters in the poultry industry. Honeybee (Apis melifera) venom (HBV) possesses a number of beneficial biological activities, particularly for regulating the immune system. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the immunoprophylactic effects of HBV against Salmonella Gallinarum in broiler chicks as an initial step towards developing eco-friendl...