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Quantitation of hepatitis C virus in liver and peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with chronic hepatitis C virus infection
Author(s) -
Martín Julio,
Navas Sonia,
Quiroga Juan Antonio,
Colucci Giuseppe,
Pardo Margarita,
Carreño Vicente
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of medical virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 121
eISSN - 1096-9071
pISSN - 0146-6615
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1096-9071(199804)54:4<265::aid-jmv5>3.0.co;2-2
Subject(s) - peripheral blood mononuclear cell , virology , hepatitis c virus , virus , rna , liver disease , viral disease , viral hepatitis , biology , hepatitis c , hepatitis , hepatitis b virus , immunology , medicine , in vitro , gene , biochemistry
Since the natural history of hepatitis C virus‐associated liver disease and the therapeutic responsiveness might vary according to liver and blood mononuclear cells viral levels, it may be important to quantitate viral RNA in liver, blood mononuclear cells and serum, and to compare these data with genotype, biochemical and histologic data. A polymerase chain reaction‐based assay available for serum hepatitis C virus RNA quantitation has been optimized to quantitate viral genomes in liver and peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 47 chronic hepatitis C patients. The procedure permitted hepatitis C virus RNA quantitation in freshly isolated mononuclear cells and in total RNA extracted from frozen mononuclear cells and liver tissue. The intrahepatic viral amount (median: 2.6 × 10 3 copies/μg RNA; range: 0 to 3.6 × 10 4 copies/μg RNA) correlated significantly with the hepatitis C virus RNA concentration in serum ( r = 0.76, P < .001) but not in mononuclear cells. Viral RNA concentrations in liver ( P < .001), serum ( P < 0.01) and PBMC ( P < 0.05) were significantly higher in hepatitis C virus genotype 1 patients (essentially type 1b) than in non‐1 type cases, but were unrelated to biochemical or histologic indexes of disease activity. In conclusion, the optimized assay permit HCV RNA quantitation in liver and peripheral blood mononuclear cells, suggesting that serum viral level is an accurate measurement of intrahepatic viral burden. J. Med. Virol. 54:265–270, 1998 . © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.