ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To study the essence of chronic viral hepatitis B (CHB) of damp-heat retention in the middle-jiao syndrome (DRMS) from plasma proteomic angle.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Plasma proteomic analyses of plasma whole protein of patients in the group with CHB of DRMS (20 cases) and subjects in the health control group (5 cases) were compared using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE), mass spectrography, and other bioinformatics analyses methods.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Eight protein dots with obvious regularity changes of differential expression were obtained by 2-DE. Seven protein dots were obtained by mass spectrography (One protein dot with undetected results): apolipoprotein C2 (APO-C2), vitronectin (VN), haptoglobin (HPT), transthyretin (TTHY), APO-A1, serum amyloid P-component (SAMP), and APO-A4. Compared with the health control group, the expressions of APO-A1 and APO-A4 were somewhat higher and the expressions of the expressions of the rest five protein dots were obviously down-regulated.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>APO-Al and APO-A4 were of potential significance in the diagnosis of CHB patients of DRMS, prognostic markers, or treatment targets.</p>