Int J Med Sci. 2018 Jan 1;15(2):188-194. doi: 10.7150/ijms.21957. eCollection 2018.
Interleukin-35 Level Is Elevated in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection.Cheng ST1, Yuan D2, Liu Y3, Huang Y3, Chen X4, Yu HB1, He L1, Jiang H1, Ren JH1, Chen J1. Author information 1Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology for Infectious Diseases (Ministry of Education), The Second Affiliated Hospital, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.2Department of Neurosurgery, The Fifth People's Hospital of Chongqing, Chongqing, China.3Department of Infectious Diseases, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China.4Department of Clinical Laboratory, Zhuzhou Central Hospital, Zhuzhou, China.
AbstractBackgrounds: As one of the major public health problems, the hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection would activate the immune system. The outcome of HBV infection was affect significantly by the interactions between HBV and host immune response. Interleukins play important role in anti-viral immunity. Here we investigated the role of interleukin-35 (IL-35) in chronic HBV infection patients. Methods/Results: Serum IL-35 in 72 chronic hepatitis B virus infection patients and 41 healthy control subjects were analyzed by ELISA assay. The mRNA level of IL-35 in PBMCs was determined by RT-qPCR. In this study, we found that both protein and mRNA levels of IL-35 were significantly decreased in chronic HBV patients compared to the healthy controls. Furthermore, the statistical analysis found that serum IL-35 was significantly associated with HBV DNA (P =0.0158), ALT (P =0.0003), AST (P =0.0216), TB (P =0.0270) and AFP (P =0.0369). Importantly, correlation analysis also found that serum IL-35 level was negatively correlated with HBV DNA copies, ALT, AST, TB and AFP. Meanwhile, IL-35 treatment inhibited the level of HBV DNA, HBsAg and HBeAg in HepAD38 cells. Conclusion: Our study identified that IL-35 may be a novel marker associated with HBV infection and hepatocytes injury. These data suggested the potential use of IL-35 in the HBV treatment.