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Induction of interleukin 6 impairs the anti‐HBV efficiency of IFN‐α in human hepatocytes through upregulation of SOCS3
Author(s) -
Yang Kai,
Guan Shihe,
Zhang Hao,
Chen Zhiwu
Publication year - 2019
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/jmv.25382
Subject(s) - socs3 , downregulation and upregulation , gene knockdown , hepatitis b virus , cytokine , interferon , biology , virology , rna interference , suppressor of cytokine signaling 1 , immunology , cell culture , signal transduction , virus , microbiology and biotechnology , suppressor , rna , gene , stat3 , biochemistry , genetics
Interleukin 6 (IL‐6) is a pleiotropic cytokine with pivotal functions in the regulation of the biological responses of several target cells, including hepatocytes. Previous studies have shown that serum IL‐6 levels are increased in hepatitis B patients. However, the role of IL‐6 in modulating the anti‐hepatitis B virus (HBV) activity of interferon‐α (IFN‐α) remains unclear. In this study, we found that both HBV and viral proteins could induce the expression of IL‐6 in hepatocytes (LO2 and HepG2). Exogenous IL‐6 had no effect on HBV replication, whereas knockdown of IL‐6 expression by RNAi inhibited that. Interestingly, IFN‐α markedly induced IL‐6 expression in hepatocytes, especially in HBV replicating hepatocytes. In turn, IL‐6 impaired the anti‐HBV efficiency of IFN‐α by decreases the expression of IFN‐α downstream effectors by upregulation of suppressor of cytokine signaling‐3 (SOCS3). Furthermore, we demonstrated that downregulation of SOCS3 improved IFN antiviral activity to some extent in HBV replicating hepatocytes. These data provided new insights for a better understanding of the mechanism of IFN‐α resistance and may represent a novel therapeutic strategy to efficiently target HBV infection.