Original Article
Copyright ©2014 Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 28, 2014; 20(28): 9486-9496
Published online Jul 28, 2014. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i28.9486
Viral infection parameters not nucleoside analogue itself correlates with host immunity in nucleoside analogue therapy for chronic hepatitis B
Cheng-Zhong Li, Jing-Jing Hu, Jian-Ya Xue, Wei Yin, Ya-Yun Liu, Wen-Han Fan, Hao Xu, Xue-Song Liang
Cheng-Zhong Li, Jian-Ya Xue, Wei Yin, Ya-Yun Liu, Wen-Han Fan, Hao Xu, Xue-Song Liang, Department of Infectious Diseases, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
Jing-Jing Hu, Central Laboratory, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
Author contributions: Li CZ and Hu JJ contributed equally to this work; Li CZ collected all human materials and helped draft the manuscript; Hu JJ performed most of the experiments; Xue JY, Yin W, Liu YY, Fan WH and Xu H were responsible for enrolling and following the patients; Liang XS conceived the study, participated in the study design, performed statistical analysis and drafted the manuscript; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by The Shanghai Natural Science Fund, No. 09ZR1400500; the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30972600; the GuangHui Fund of Hepatitis Prevention Fund Committee China, No. GHZ20100204; and the Shanghai Health Bureau Fund, No. 2012092
Correspondence to: Xue-Song Liang, Associate Professor, Department of Infectious Diseases, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China. liangxuesong2000@163.com
Telephone: +86-21-31161902 Fax: +86-21-65518368
Received: December 4, 2013
Revised: February 8, 2014
Accepted: April 1, 2014
Published online: July 28, 2014
Core Tip

Core tip: We compared the host immunity of hepatitis B envelope antigen (HBeAg)-positive patients treated with telbivudine (LDT) to those treated with lamivudine (LAM) and longitudinally investigated the relationship between two important negative immune modulating factors and viral infection parameters in HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients that were treated with the nucleoside analogues (NAs) LDT and LAM. NA-mediated inhibition of hepatitis B virus replication could cause the downregulation of PD-1+ CD8 T cells and Treg cells during the first 24 wk of therapy and could also partially restore the ability of CD8 T cells to secrete pro-inflammatory cytokines. The immune modulating effect associated with NA treatment in CHB patients was correlated with the levels of both HBV DNA and HBeAg.