Effect Of Oral Administration Of Prednisone In Mice With HBV Infection

Objective：To detect the effect of glucocorticoid on HBV replication ofmice in vivo.Methods： HBV replication competent plasmid pAAV/HBV1.2wastransferred into male C57L/6mice by hydrodynamics-based in vivotransfection.24h after transfection, the mice were matched by body weight,age and serum level of Hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) and were divided intoexperiment group and control group, and then treated orally with prednisoneor normal saline at interval of twenty four hours for3and10days.Four to sixhours after the last administration,the mice were killed. HBV-DNAreplication intermediates in liver were analyzed by Southern BlotHybridization. The serum HBsAg and HBeAg were detected bychemiluminescent detection system.Results：HBV-DNA replication intermediates were detected in the liversof mice after treating orally with prednisone or normal saline for3days,thelevel of HBV-DNA replication intermidiates of the experimental group was0.127times higher than that of the control group.However,after treatment for10days,compared with the control group of mice,the level of HBV-DNAreplication intermediates of the experimental mice increased greatly.Quantitatave analysis showed that prednisone increased the level ofHBV-DNA replication intermediates appropriately1.534fold.three days afterthe above treatment, the serum HBsAg of the control mice and theexperimental mice were on average1618.28μg/μl,1666.23μg/μl, respectively, which showed no siginificant difference; Similarily,there was no siginificantdifference in the serum HbeAg, which showed as follows:14.68μg/μl,14.95μg/μl on average, respectively. In contrast,10days after the sametreatment, the serum HBsAg of the control and the experimental of micewere on average8059.40μg/μl,11885.87μg/μl, respectively, and the serumHBeAg were183.15μg/μl,286.14μg/μl, respectively.Both of the level ofserum HBsAg and HbeAg from experimental mice were higher than that ofcontrol animals.Conclusions：The replication and expression of hepatitis B virus in theHBV infection mice could be increased by prednisone orally.and theincreasing effect of prednisone on HBV is time-dependant,which providesfurther research about HBV reactivation caused by prednisone and otherimmunosuppressive drugs,and reminds clinicians,especially non-infectedprofessional doctors to pay full attention to HBV reactivation whenglucocorticoid is used in patients with HBV infection.