Antibodies to translation products of the pre-S1 and pre-S2 regions of the envelope gene of hepatitis B virus in fulminant hepatitis B

✍ Scribed by Iku Ise; Fumio Tsuda; Shinobu Aihara; Atsuhiko Machida; Emiko Takai; Hideaki Miyamoto; Yoshihiro Akahane; Yuzo Miyakawa; Makoto Mayumi

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1988
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 611 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0270-9139
• DOI: 10.1002/hep.1840080518

✦ Synopsis

Sera from 11 patients with fulminant hepatitis B were tested for antibodies to translation products of the pre-S1 and pre-S2 regions of hepatitis B virus of IgM, IgA and IgG classes, as well as of IgA1, IgA2 and SIgA, with solid-phase enzyme immunoassays using native viral polypeptides. Antibodies to pre-S 1 region product of IgM and/or IgA class were detected invariably in six patients who still had detectable hepatitis B surface antigen in serum at the time of clinical presentation. The remaining five patients who had lost HBsAg at presentation had antibodies to pre-S region products of various immunoglobulin classes in higher titers. The five patients with fulminant hepatitis without HBsAg had higher levels of IgA antibodies to pre-S region products than the seven patients with nonfulminant acute hepatitis B who had lost HBsAg: IgA antibody to pre-S1 region product (75.6 f 63.8 vs. 2.9 f 3.2, p < 0.01) and IgA antibody to pre-S2 region product (28.9 f 25.3 vs. 4.2 2 6.9, p c 0.01). IgA antibodies to pre-S1 and pre-52 region products were invariably polymeric in fulminant hepatitis B. These findings are compatible with the hypothesis that a heightened humoral antibody response to pre-S1 and pre-S2 region products occurs early during the course of fulminant hepatitis B, participating in severe hepatic injury and early clearance of virus characteristic of this disease.