BACKGROUND/AIMS Hepatitis B core antigen is known to be a major target for virus-specific T cells and also reflects the progression of liver dissease and viral replication. Hepatitis B core antigen expression in hepatocytes leads to altered histological activity, viral replication, and immune response. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the topographical distribution of hepatitis ...

Four oral antiviral agents have been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B: lamivudine, adefovir, entecavir, and telbivudine. This article reviews the durability of response, dose regimen, predictors of response, safety, and problems with resistance of these four agents and of promising agents currently in phase III clinical tr...

A family of antigens, referred to collectively as e antigen (eAg), has been detected in sera of some individuals with liver disease who test positive for hepatitis B surface antigen. Studies on eAg partially purified by affinity chromatography on insolubilized antibodies to eAg revealed the following: (i) eAg has the physicochemical and immunologic properties of an immunoglobulin, predominantly...

conclusions some il-10 promoter gene polymorphisms predisposed the infected hepatitis b virus cases to cirrhosis in our study population. patients and methods totally, 166 patients with chronic hepatitis b infection were enrolled. genotypes at different positions (i.e. -819, - 592, and - 1082) in the il-10 gene promoter were determined. results the c/a genotype at position -592, c/t genotype at...

INTRODUCTION Hepatitis B vaccination starting at birth provides a safety net for infants exposed to hepatitis B virus (HBV) during delivery or in early life. Hepatitis B vaccine is recommended in the United States for infants prior to birthing facility discharge, and within the first 12h of life for infants born to hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive mothers. We performed a literature ...

Hepatitis B e antigen-positive human serum was treated with 50-90% ethanol at room temperature for 1-60 min, then the antigenicity of S antigen (hepatitis B surface antigen, in a narrow sense) was determined by radioimmunoassay and the antigenicities of pre-S1 and pre-S2 antigens were measured by enzyme immunoassay. In addition, hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA in the treated serum was detected by p...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) reactivation with imatinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, has been reported in chronic myeloid leukemia. Nilotinib is a more potent second generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor and it inhibits the Src-family kinase LCK and hamper proliferation and function of CD8 (+) T lymphocytes. CD8 (+) T lymphocytes are the main cellular subset responsible for viral clearance in patien...

A sensitive enzyme immunoassay (EIA) specific for hepatitis B virus core antigen (HBcAg) and hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) was developed. We designated the precore/core gene products as hepatitis B virus (HBV) core-related antigens (HBcrAg). In order to detect HBcrAg even in anti-HBc/e antibody-positive specimens, the specimens were pretreated in detergents. The antibodies are inactivated by th...