Selecting Anti-Hepatitis B Virus Agents For Drug-Resistance Patients

Main Category: Liver Disease / Hepatitis
Also Included In: MRSA / Drug Resistance;  Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses
Article Date: 25 Sep 2008 - 4:00 PDT

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HBV infection may lead to acute liver disease, chronic active hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Over 350 million people worldwide are estimated to be infected chronically by HBV and are therefore at risk of liver failure, cirrhosis, or hepatocellular carcinoma. The principal treatment for chronic hepatitis B (CHB) involves the use of interferon alpha (IFN-a) or nucleoside analogs. In vitro analysis of clinical HBV isolates is currently difficult for lacking of HBV cellular culture model

A research article published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this. The research team led by Prof. Yin-Ping Lu from Union Hospital of Tongji Medical College reportd a useful strategy to select anti-HBV agents for drug-resistance patients. The full-length HBV genomic DNA from chronic hepatitis B patients were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The amplified HBV DNA fragments were inserted into an universal HBV expression vector respectively. The recombinant plasmids containing 1.1 copies of HBV genome were transient transfected into Huh7 cells and antiviral susceptibility of lamivudine and adefovir were analyzed in vitro model system. Furthermore, the antiviral susceptibility of adefovir in vivo were observed subsequently.

Eight clinical HBV isolates form different individual with lamivudine-resistance were cloned into HBV expression vector, and recombinant plasmids were transcient transfected into Huh7 cells. The results indicated that HBV genome of clinical HBV isolates could effectively replicate and be expressed in Huh7 cells. Adefovir but not lamivudine inhibited HBV replication both in vitro and in vivo.

The novel method described in this article enables rapidly selecting of anti-HBV agents in clinic and will be useful in future studies of antiviral therapy for chronic hepatitis B.

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Reference: Lu YP, Guo T, Wang BJ, Dong JH, Zhu JF, Liu Z, Lu MJ, Yang DL. Replication of clinical HBV isolate and its application for selecting antiviral agents for chronic hepatitis B patients. World J Gastroenterol 2008; 14(22):3490-3496 http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/14/3490.asp

Correspondence to: Dr. Yin-Ping Lu, Department of Virology, Union Hospital of Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 1277 Jiefang Avenue, Wuhan 430022, Hubei Province, China.

About World Journal of Gastroenterology

World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has established a reputation for publishing first class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H pylori infection. It provides a forum for both clinicians and scientists. WJG has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2003-2000 IF: 3.318, 2.532, 1.445 and 0.993. WJG is a weekly journal published by WJG Press. The publication dates are the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th of every month. The WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No. 30424812, and was founded with the title China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed WJG on January 25, 1998.

About The WJG Press

The WJG Press mainly publishes World Journal of Gastroenterology.

Source: Lai-Fu Li
World Journal of Gastroenterology