Expression of IFNAR2 mRNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of patients with HCV infection.

BACKGROUND

To investigate the differences of interferon-alpha/beta receptor 2 (IFNAR2) mRNA expression level in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) between different stages of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and to determine the correlation with the effectiveness of interferon therapy.

METHODOLOGY: 58 patients, positive for anti-HCV antibodies, were divided into three groups depending on their clinical symptoms: acute hepatitis (4 cases), chronic hepatitis (46 cases) and liver cirrhosis (8 cases). 15 volunteers served as healthy controls. PBMCs were purified by density gradient centrifugation and IFNAR2 mRNA was amplified from these cells by a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay.

RESULTS

The detection rate of IFNAR2 mRNA was 87.9% (51/58 cases) in the PBMCs of patients with HCV infection, significantly higher than that in the control group (333%, 5/15 cases; P < 0.05). While the positive rate was 93.5% (43/46 cases) in the chronic hepatitis group, which was significantly higher than that in the liver cirrhosis group (50%, 4/8 cases; P < 0.05). Furthermore, there is no significant difference in the positive rates for HCV-RNA of PBMCs among groups (P > 0.05). The positive rate of IFNAR2 mRNA in PBMCs was not correlated with the viral load of HCV-RNA in serum (P > 0.05). However, higher expression of IFNAR2 mRNA in the PBMCs did correlate with the effectiveness of interferon therapy (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

HCV infection up-regulates the expression of IFNAR2 mRNA in PBMCs. IFNAR2 mRNA expression in the chronic hepatitis group was higher than that in the liver cirrhosis group, and significantly correlated with the effectiveness of interferon therapy, which was independent of the viral load.