Is hepatitis G/GB virus-C virus hepatotropic? Detection of hepatitis G/GB virus-C viral RNA in liver and serum

✍ Scribed by Fan, Xiaofeng; Xu, Yanjuan; Solomon, Harvey; Ramrakhiani, Sanjay; Neuschwander-Tetri, Brent A.; Di Bisceglie, Adrian M.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 72 KB
• Volume: 58
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0146-6615
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1096-9071(199906)58:2<160::aid-jmv10>3.0.co;2-9

✦ Synopsis

The recently identified hepatitis G virus (HGV, also named GB virus-C, GBV-C) appears to have similarities to hepatitis C virus and other flaviviridae. To better understand its clinical significance and hepatotropism, we collected liver tissue and matched serum samples from 56 patients undergoing liver transplantation. HGV/ G B V -C R N A w a s d e t e c t e d b y r e v e r s e transcription-nested PCR, using primers from the relatively conserved 5Ј noncoding region of the genome to detect HGV/GBV-C RNA and the amount was semiquantitatively estimated by serial 10-fold endpoint dilution. The presence and amount of HCV RNA was estimated by the same methodology. Seventeen patients (30%) had HGV/GBV-C RNA detectable either in liver or in serum, including two of three with cryptogenic liver disease. Interestingly, 5 of 17 (29%) patients had HGV/GBV-C RNA in serum but not liver, even with repeated testing of hepatic RNA from different portions of the liver. Furthermore, the titer of HGV/GBV-C RNA was significantly lower in liver than in serum in most samples (mean log titer, 1.33 vs. 2.56, P < 0.05). In contrast, all 21 patients with HCV RNA in serum also had the virus detectable in liver. In five patients coinfected with HCV and HGV/GBV-C, the mean titer of HCV RNA in liver was higher than that in serum (log titer, 2.8 vs. 3.0, P > 0.05). Thus, our results suggest that HGV/GBV-C is probably not hepatotropic and may replicate predominantly in sites other than the liver. These findings brings into question the role of HGV in causing significant liver disease.