Case Control Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Feb 18, 2016; 8(5): 291-300
Published online Feb 18, 2016. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v8.i5.291
High level of serum cholesteryl ester transfer protein in active hepatitis C virus infection
Kenichi Satoh, Tomohisa Nagano, Nobuyoshi Seki, Yoichi Tomita, Yuta Aida, Tomonori Sugita, Munenori Itagaki, Satoshi Sutoh, Hiroshi Abe, Yoshio Aizawa
Kenichi Satoh, Tomohisa Nagano, Nobuyoshi Seki, Yoichi Tomita, Yuta Aida, Tomonori Sugita, Munenori Itagaki, Satoshi Sutoh, Hiroshi Abe, Yoshio Aizawa, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Internal Medicine of Jikei University Katsushika Medical Center, Katsushikaku, Tokyo 125-8506, Japan
Author contributions: Seki N and Aizawa Y designed research; Satoh K, Nagano T, Seki N, Tomita Y, Aida Y, Sugita T, Itagaki M, Sutoh S, Abe H and Aizawa Y treated patients and collected materials and clinical data; Satoh K, Nagano T, and Aizawa Y analyzed data; Satoh K and Aizawa Y wrote the paper.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the ethics committee of Jikei University School of Medicine (Tokyo, Japan).
Informed consent statement: All patients gave informed consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There were no conflict-of-interests which must be declared.
Data sharing statement: The technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset are available from the corresponding author at satoken@jikei.ac.jp.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Kenichi Satoh, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Internal Medicine of Jikei University Katsushika Medical Center, 6-41-2 Aoto, Katsushikaku, Tokyo 125-8506, Japan. satoken@jikei.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-33-6032111 Fax: +81-33-8389944
Received: August 27, 2015
Peer-review started: August 31, 2015
First decision: September 28, 2015
Revised: December 30, 2015
Accepted: January 27, 2016
Article in press: January 29, 2016
Published online: February 18, 2016
Abstract

AIM: To determine the significance of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) in lipoprotein abnormalities in chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection.

METHODS: We evaluated the significance of the serum concentration of CETP in 110 Japanese patients with chronic HCV infection. Fifty-five patients had active HCV infection, and HCV eradication had been achieved in 55. The role of CETP in serum lipoprotein abnormalities, specifically, in triglyceride (TG) concentrations in the four major classes of lipoproteins, was investigated using Pearson correlations in conjunction with multiple regression analysis and compared them between those with active HCV infection and those in whom eradication had been achieved.

RESULTS: The serum CETP levels of patients with active HCV infection were significantly higher than those of patients in whom HCV eradication was achieved (mean ± SD, 2.84 ± 0.69 μg/mL vs 2.40 ± 1.00 μg/mL, P = 0.008). In multiple regression analysis, HCV infection status (active or eradicated) was an independent factor significantly associated with the serum CETP level. TG concentrations in low-density lipoprotein (mean ± SD, 36.25 ± 15.28 μg/mL vs 28.14 ± 9.94 μg/mL, P = 0.001) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) (mean ± SD, 25.9 ± 7.34 μg/mL vs 17.17 ± 4.82 μg/mL, P < 0.001) were significantly higher in patients with active HCV infection than in those in whom HCV eradication was achieved. The CETP level was strongly correlated with HDL-TG in patients with active HCV infection (R = 0.557, P < 0.001), whereas CETP was not correlated with HDL-TG in patients in whom HCV eradication was achieved (R = -0.079, P = 0.56).

CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that CETP plays a role in abnormalities of lipoprotein metabolism in patients with chronic HCV infection.

Keywords: Hepatitis C virus, Cholesteryl ester transfer protein, High-density lipoprotein triglyceride, Case control study, Lipoprotein metabolism

Core tip: Cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) mediates the transfer of neutral lipids between lipoproteins. Although lipoprotein metabolism abnormalities have been extensively studied, the role of CETP in abnormal lipoprotein profiles in patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is unknown. Accordingly, we investigated, for the first time, high serum CETP level in patients with active HCV infection. HCV infection was a determinant of the serum CETP level in multiple regression analysis. A high CETP concentration in HCV infection was strongly correlated with excessive triglyceride accumulation in high-density lipoprotein. Thus, CETP may contribute to abnormal lipoprotein metabolism in HCV infection.