PMID: 8590155Jul 1, 1995Paper

Autoimmune mechanisms in chronic hepatitis B and delta virus infections

European Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology
B M McFarlaneI G McFarlane

Abstract

To investigate the possibility that hepatitis delta virus infection may be responsible for, or enhance, the autoreactivity seen in patients chronically infected with hepatitis B virus. Sera from 68 patients with chronic hepatitis B infection, 27 of whom had concomitant delta virus (HDV) infection and 19 of whom were infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), were screened for (1) the non-organ-specific autoantibodies usually associated with autoimmune hepatitis, (2) antibodies against the putative autoantigen, GOR, which have been described in patients with HCV infection and (3) antibodies against a hepatocyte-specific autoantigen, the asialoglycoprotein receptor (ASGP-R). Anti-GOR antibodies were detected using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay against a synthetic GOR peptide, non-organ-specific autoantibodies using standard indirect immunofluorescence and anti-ASGP-R antibodies using a radioimmunoassay. Liver-specific autoreactivity, manifested by circulating anti-ASGP-R antibodies, was found in 41 (60.3%) patients and correlated independently with the histological severity of liver damage but not with HDV infection. In contrast, non-organ-specific autoantibodies (antinuclear, anti-smooth muscle, anti-gastric parietal cell and...Continue Reading

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