Xiu BS, Feng XY, He J, Wang GH, Zhang XY, Zhang HQ, Song XG, Chen K, Ling SG, Zhu CX, Wei L, Rao HY. Evaluation of cross-reactive antibody response to HVR1 in chronic hepatitis C. World J Gastroenterol 2010; 16(35): 4460-4466 [PMID: 20845515 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v16.i35.4460]
Corresponding Author of This Article
He-Qiu Zhang, Professor, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Beijing 100850, China. zhangheqiu2004@yahoo.com.cn
Article-Type of This Article
Brief Article
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Bing-Shui Xiu, Xiao-Yan Feng, Jing He, Guo-Hua Wang, He-Qiu Zhang, Xiao-Guo Song, Kun Chen, Shi-Gan Ling, Cui-Xia Zhu, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Beijing 100850, China
Xiang-Ying Zhang, National Institute for Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products, Beijing 100050, China
Lai Wei, Hui-Ying Rao, Hepatology Institute, People’ Hospital, Peking University, Beijing 100044, China
Author contributions: Xiu BS, Feng XY and He J contributed equally to this study; Xiu BS, Feng XY, Zhang HQ and He J designed the research; Wang GH, Zhang XY, Song XG, Chen K, Ling SG and Zhu CX performed the research and analyzed the date; Wei L and Rao HY provided the clinical date and reviewed the paper.
Supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30500476; The National High-Tech Science Foundation of China, No. 2008AA02Z434; National S and T Major Projects for Infectious Disease Control, No. 2008ZX10002-013 and 2009ZX09103-621; Beijing Natural Science Foundation, No. 7082048
Correspondence to: He-Qiu Zhang, Professor, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Beijing 100850, China. zhangheqiu2004@yahoo.com.cn
Telephone: +86-10-68285718 Fax: +86-10-68285718
Received: March 15, 2010 Revised: May 18, 2010 Accepted: May 25, 2010 Published online: September 21, 2010
Abstract
AIM: To evaluate the presence and cross-reactive antibodies against hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected patients and its relationship with the progression of the disease.
METHODS: Sixteen representative HVR1 proteins selected from a unique set of 1600 natural sequences were used to semiquantitate the cross-reactivity of HVR1 antibodies in the sera of HCV patients. Fifty-five chronic HCV patients including 23 with asymptomatic mild hepatitis, 18 with chronic hepatitis and 16 with liver cirrhosis patients were studied.
RESULTS: The degree of the cross-reactivity of anti-HVR1 antibodies in 23 patients with mild asymptomatic hepatitis was 3.09 ± 2.68, which was significantly lower than in those with chronic hepatitis (5.44 ± 3.93, P < 0.05) and liver cirrhosis (7.44 ± 3.90, P < 0.01). No correlation was observed between the broadness of the cross-reactivity anti-HVR1 antibodies and patient’s age, infection time, serum alanine aminotransferase activity, or serum HCV-RNA concentration. It was the breath of cross-reactivity rather than the presence of anti-HVR1 antibody in HCV sera that was associated with the progression of liver disease.
CONCLUSION: The broadly cross-reactive HVR1 antibodies generated in natural HCV patients can not neutralize the virus, which results in persistent infection in patients with chronic hepatitis.
