OBJECTIVE Recent evidence indicates a crucial role of the immunoinhibitory receptor programmed death-1 (PD-1) in enforcing T-cell dysfunction during chronic viral infection and cancer. We assessed the impact of circulating soluble PD-1 (sPD-1) levels on long-term dynamics of hepatitis B virus (HBV) load and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk. METHODS In a case-cohort study on longitudinal an...

BACKGROUND More than two billion people have been exposed to hepatitis B virus (HBV) worldwide. Furthermore, four hundred million of them are infected with chronic HBV infection. The predominant mutation of the precore region involves a G to A change at nucleotide1896, which creates a premature stop codon at codon 28. Two mutations of A1762T and G1764A are reported as the most prevalent mutatio...

Chronic infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) affects 240 million people worldwide and may cause liver disease including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Initially patients have high levels of HBV DNA in their blood, no liver disease and express the e antigen (HBeAg). At some point an immune response is mounted and the viral load decreases with several log10 copies/ml, they lose HBeAg and sever...

The clinical manifestations of hepatitis B viral infection (HBV) include chronic hepatitis B (CHB), liver cirrhosis (LC) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The contribution of negative regulator suppressor of cytokine signaling-3 (SOCS3) promoter variants in HBV disease and SOCS3 hypermethylation in tumor tissues were investigated. The SOCS3 promoter region was screened for polymorphisms in 87...

Today, chronic viral hepatitis is considered as a public health problem in the world. Totally, 5% of the world population, especially in Asia and Africa suffer from this problem. The prevalence of acute hepatitis in America is 0.1-0.2 percent, 50% of those with hepatitis C (HCV) and 5-10% of them with hepatitis B (HCV) develop chronic hepatitis. Determining HBV and HCV genotypes is important to...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis B virus (HBV) variants belong to different genotypes, A-J, whose worldwide distribution is linked with geography, probably because viral spread was associated with ancient human migrations. HBV genotype G (HBV-G) is an aberrant genotype with little sequence divergence, suggesting a recent origin. HBV-G is strongly associated with certain risk groups such as intravenous drug...

BACKGROUND Toll like receptors (TLRs) play an important role in innate immunity and various studies suggest that TLRs play a crucial role in pathogenesis of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. The present study aims in looking into the status of crucial host and viral gene expression on inciting TLR7. METHODS The transcription of TLR7 pathway signaling molecules and HBV DNA viral load were qua...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Programmed death-1 (PD-1) expression was investigated in CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells from hepatitis B virus (HBV)-infected patients at the chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection, liver cirrhosis (LC), and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) stages. METHODS PD-1 expression in circulating CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells was detected by flow cytometry. The correlations between PD-1 expression an...

BACKGROUND/AIMS To assess the durability of protective hepatitis B surface antibody (anti-HBs) titers in HIV-infected patients who responded to double-dose hepatitis B virus (HBV) rescue vaccination. METHODS A retrospective chart review was performed for HIV-infected patients who received the double-dose HBV rescue vaccination at 0-, 1-, and 2-month intervals after they had failed conventiona...

BACKGROUND The aim is to define the role of single nucleotide polymorphism on the progress of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. We evaluated polymorphisms of TNF-α-308, Vitamin D receptor Apa I and Taq I gene in patients with HBV infection. METHODS All subjects included were older than 18 years old. Sixty three patients had chronic HBV infection, 61 were HBsAg positive carriers and 59 were p...