The Correlation Between The Expression Of TLR7mRNA In Peripheral Blood Monouclear Cells Of Chronic Hepatitis B Patients And IL-12,HBV-DNA Load

Objective This study is aimed to investigate the correlation between the expression of TLR7mRNA in peripheral blood monouclear cells (PBMCs) of chronic hepatitis B patients and IL-12,HBVDNA load, to explore the role of TLR7 in anti- HBVDNA.Methods Real-time quantitative RT-PCR examined TLR7 mRNA expression in 38 patients with different HBVDNA load and 12 healthy controls, the patients were divided into three grougs based on low,medium,and high virus load . Real-time PCR examined HBV DNA, ELISA examined the level of serum interleukin-12(IL-12). Using analysis of variance compare the difference of mean among groups. Using Spearman rank correlation analyze the correlation between HBV-DNA load and TLR7 expression.Results The results demonstrated the expression of TLR7 and IL-12 was significantly lower in HBV infection groups than the controls, the difference was statistically significant ( P< 0.01). There was statistical difference in TLR7 mRNA expression among three groups of chronic hepatitis B patients, furthermore the expression of TLR7 was negative correlated with HBVDNA load. There was statistical difference in serum IL-12 between the groups of low and medium virus load( P< 0.01), while difference of the other group was statistically insignificant (p >0.05) . IL-12 was negative correlated with HBVDNA load (r=-0.075 p<0.01)Conclusion There are downregulations of TLR7 mRNA expression in PBMC of HBV-infected patients, both TLR7 and IL-12 play important roles in clearing out virus , they may participate in chronic mechanism of hepatitis B.