Changes of hepatitis B virus DNA in liver and serum caused by recombinant leukocyte interferon treatment: Analysis of intrahepatic replicative hepatitis B virus DNA

✍ Scribed by Osamu Yokosuka; Masao Omata; Fumio Imazeki; Kunio Okuda; Jesse Summers

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1985
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 753 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0270-9139
• DOI: 10.1002/hep.1840050505

✦ Synopsis

Twenty patients with HBeAg-positive chronic liver disease were given large doses of recombinant leukocyte interferon for 4 weeks. Changes of hepatitis B virus DNA in livers and sera were analyzed by the molecular hybridization technique in paired biopsies obtained before and 2 weeks after treatment. Serum hepatitis B virus DNA was examined before, during and after the treatment until 4 weeks post-interferon.

Analysis of hepatic hepatitis B virus DNA revealed species that appeared to represent various forms of replicative hepatitis B virus DNA, i.e., relaxed circular, linear, supercoiled and singlestranded hepatitis B virus DNA, respectively. No evidence of integration of hepatitis B virus DNA in genomic DNA was obtained. Of 15 cases which were positive for hepatic hepatitis B virus DNA before treatment and in which paired biopsies were obtained, hepatic hepatitis B virus DNA became negative in 4, decreased in 5 and unchanged in 6. Among several types of replicative viral DNA in liver tissue, supercoiled hepatitis B virus DNA tended to remain after other forms were reduced.