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Relationship between the intrahepatic expression of interferon‐α receptor mRNA and the histological progress of hepatitis C virus‐associated chronic liver diseases
Author(s) -
ISHIMURA NORIHISA,
FUKUDA RYO,
FUKUMOTO SHIRO
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of gastroenterology and hepatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.214
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1440-1746
pISSN - 0815-9319
DOI - 10.1111/j.1440-1746.1996.tb00319.x
Subject(s) - cirrhosis , medicine , liver biopsy , interferon , hepatitis c virus , hepatitis c , liver disease , fibrosis , biopsy , hepatitis , messenger rna , alpha interferon , immunology , virus , pathology , biology , gene , biochemistry
Histological progress is one of the predictors of an unfavourable response to interferon (IFN) therapy in hepatitis C virus (HCV)‐associated chronic liver diseases (CLD). The aim of the present study was to investigate whether histological progress has an association with the expression of IFN receptor (IFN‐Rc) in the liver. Expression of mRNA of the IFN‐Rc for IFN‐α was investigated by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction using liver biopsy specimens from 37 HCV‐associated CLD comprising 11 liver cirrhosis (LC) and 26 chronic hepatitis (CH) cases. IFN‐α and IFN‐β mRNA were detected in over 90% of subjects. In contrast, the detection rate of IFN‐Rc mRNA in chronic persistant hepatitis, chronic hepatitis 2A, chronic hepatitis 2B and liver cirrhosis (LC) was 100, 71.4, 22.2 and 0%, respectively. The absence of IFN‐Rc mRNA was significantly associated with the severity of fibrosis of the liver. These results indicated that IFN‐Rc expression decreases with the histological progress of the disease, suggesting that lower expression of IFN‐Rc mRNA may be partially responsible for the poor IFN response in LC.