J Infect Dis. 2017 Nov 16;216(suppl_8):S765-S770. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jix356.
Immunopathogenesis of Hepatitis B Virus.Tseng TC1,2, Huang LR3,4.
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1Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital-Jinshan Branch, New Taipei City.2Hepatitis Research Center, National Taiwan University Hospital.3Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei.4Institute of Molecular and Genomic Medicine, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli, Taiwan.
AbstractChronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a global public health issue. There are >250 million people chronically infected with HBV, and these chronic carriers are at high risk of developing end-stage liver diseases and hepatocellular carcinoma. Patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) usually acquire the virus perinatally, while most patients infected during adulthood develop acute hepatitis B (AHB), which usually results in viral clearance. HBV infection is noncytopathic, and liver injury is mostly contributed by host immune responses. The virus is stealthy, since the infection rarely induces type I interferon response in the early phase. In AHB, viral infection is detected and restrained by the innate immune response, which is followed by a strong and robust adaptive immune response and accompanied by viral clearance. In patients with CHB, both innate and adaptive immune responses are weak and thus rarely lead to viral clearance. Interferon α and nucleos(t)ide analogues are 2 classes of approved antiviral therapies. The former treatment activates nature killer (NK) cells and NK T cells, which partially enhances the innate immune response, while the later treatment suppresses viral replication by inhibiting reverse transcriptase, which may restore the HBV-specific adaptive immune response. However, single or combined treatment are still far from achieving seroclearance of HBV surface antigen. Although the treatment response is unsatisfactory in current clinical trials using several immunomodulators for boosting antiviral immunity, immunotherapy that is able to induce immune surveillance is still the most promising modality for HBV cure in the future.
© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, e-mail: [email protected].
KEYWORDS: HBV; acute hepatitis B; chronic hepatitis B; immunotherapy
PMID:29156047DOI:10.1093/infdis/jix356
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