Individual subjects with HBV infection were confirmed positive fo

Individual subjects with HBV infection were confirmed positive for HBsAg and selleck bio detectable HBV virions for at least 12 months [24]. Subjects with positive hepatitis C and D, HIV infection, with autoimmune hepatitis or metabolic liver disease, receiving immunosuppressive therapy, or antiviral therapy within the past 12 months before entry were excluded [24]. All of the patients denied to being drug users, or having been exposed to hepatotoxin [24]. Those HBV infected subjects were further classified into two distinct groups, according to the levels of serum HBV DNA loads and ALT. Subjects with high copies of serum HBV DNA loads and normal levels of ALT (normal range: ��40 U/L) were considered as IT, but those with relatively low levels of serum HBV DNA loads and abnormal levels of ALT were defined as IA, as described previously [6]�C[8], [25].

Their demographic and clinical characteristics are summarized in Table 1. Those IA patients were treated orally with 10 mg of adefovir dipivoxil (Gilead Science, Forster City, USA) daily for 12 weeks. Their serum ALT, AST, HBsAg, HBsAb, HBeAg, HBeAb concentrations, and HBV DNA loads were analyzed (Table 2). Individual IA patients with at least 100-fold reduced serum HBV viral loads were defined as drug response patients, but others were defined as drug non-response patients. The study conformed for the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by Human Ethics Committee of Jilin University,ChangChun,China. Written informed consent was obtained from each participant.

Peripheral blood samples were obtained from individual subjects, and the levels of serum AST and ALT were detected by Biochemistry Automatic Analyzer (Roche Diagnostics, Branchburg, USA) [22]. The levels of serum HBV DNA loads were measured by quantitative PCR assay using the luciferase quantization detection kit with a detection limit of 300 copies/mL (Roche Amplicor, Basel, Switzerland), according to the manufacturers’ instruction [22]. The levels of HBV-related HBsAg, HBsAb, HBeAg, and HBeAb were determined by a chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay (CMIA) using an Abbott I 2000 automated chemiluminescence immunoassay analyzer (Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, Illinois, USA). The concentrations of serum HBeAb in individual samples were determined semi-quantitatively by a competitive inhibition method, according to the manufacturers’ instruction and a previous report [26].

The data are expressed as median (range) of signal OD to cut-off (S/CO). Accordingly, the higher concentrations of Batimastat serum HBeAb, the lower values of S/CO. Mice Both female and male C57BL/6 HBV-transgenic mice and non-transgenic C57BL/6 mice at 8 weeks of age were purchased from Vital River Laboratories (Beijing, China). This HBV-transgenic line of mice displays high levels of serum HBV replicative DNA, with the log value of the HBV DNA load [5.94, (5.45�C6.

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