Study of the expression levels of Hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 alpha and 3 beta in patients with different outcome of HBV infection

Abstract

Hepatocyte nuclear factors 4 alpha (HNF4) and 3 beta (HNF3) are members of a group of liver-enriched transcription factors (LETFs) that play important roles in regulating the replication of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and liver inflammation. However, the relationship of the level of HNF4 and HNF3 with the severity of HBV-infected liver diseases is unclear. In this study, liver tissue samples from different types of HBV patients were collected, and HNF4 and HNF3 expression were detected by immunohistochemistry. The expression of HNF4 was significant higher in patients with severe hepatitis B(SHB) than those with chronic hepatitis B(CHB) and liver cirrhosis(LC) (both P < 0.05), but similar between patients with CHB and LC (P > 0.05). And the expression of HNF3 was similar among patients with CHB, LC and SHB (P > 0.05 for all pairwise comparison). This suggests that the expression level of HNF4 was different in patients with different outcome of HBV infection, high expression level of HNF4 may correlate with occurrence of SHB. © 2012 Chen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.