Expression and significance of microRNA-548ah and microRNA-4804 in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infections

Abstract

Objective To investigate the expression of microRNA-548ah (miR-548ah) and microRNA-4804 (miR-4804) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection and their clinical significance. Methods PBMCs were collected from 29 patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB), 30 hepatitis B virus carriers (HBVC), 26 inactive HBsAg carriers (IASC) and 28 healthy controls in Taizhou People's Hospital during September 2012 and August 2013. Expressions of miR-548ah and miR-4804 in PBMCs were detected by fluorescence real-time quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the expression of miR-548ah and miR-4804 in distinguishing immune tolerance phase and clearance phase of HBV infection. Pearson correlation analysis was performed to assess the correlations of miRNAs expression with clinical markers alanine aminotrans ferase (ALT) and HBV DNA loads. Results There were significant differences in expressions of miR-548ah and miR-4804 in PBMCs between CHB, HBVC, IASC groups and control group (F=28.16 and 83.17, P 0.05). The areas under ROC curve (AUCs) of miR-548ah and miR-4804 in differentiation of immune tolerance and immune clearance were 0.966 and 0.997, and the sensitivities and specificities were 89.7%, 96.6% and 99.6%, 100.0%, respectively. No significant correlation was found between the expression of miR-548ah, miR-4804 and ALT, HBV DNA loads (r=0.14, 0.18,-0.20 and-0.19, P>0.05). Conclusion miR-548ah and miR-4804 may be involved in the immunopathogenesis of CHB, and their expression levels in PBMCs are helpful in differentiation of immune tolerance and immune clearance in HBV infection. Key words: Chronic hepatitis B; microRNAs; Immune tolerance; Immune clearance