ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the relationship between the frequency of peripheral blood natural killer cells (NK) and HLA-Cw alleles in liver cirrhotic patients with chronic HBV infection and a-cute hepatitis B patients. Methods Thirty liver cirrhotic patients and 30 patients with acute hepatitis B were included in our study, and 41 healthy individuals were enrolled as controls. The numbers of circulating NK cells and activated NK ceils were analyzed by flow cytometry. HLA-Cw genotyping was conducted with polymerase chain reaction-sequence specific oligonucleotide (PCR-SSO). Results The numbers of circu-lating NK cells and activated NK cells in liver cirrhotic patients were 13.22% ± 4.61% and 45.68% ± 14.64%, which was lower than that in healthy subjects (P < 0.05). The numbers of circulating NK cells and activated NK cells in acute hepatitis B patients were 22.62% ± 3.70% and 65.28%± 14.45%, which was higher than that in healthy subjects(P < 0. 05). There were statistically significant differences between the two groups(P < 0.01). The allele frequency of HLA-Cw * 15 in the patients with cirrhosis was signifi-cantly higher than that in the healthy (P < 0.05), and there was a significant negative correlation between the frequency of HLA-Cw * 15 and the numbers of activated NK cells in liver cirrhosis(r =4). 862, P < 0.05). No statistically significance was found between the group of acute hepatitis B and healthy subjects a- bout HLA-Cw(P > 0. 05). Conclusion The function of NK cells in liver cirrhotic patients is low, HLA-Cw * 15 gene may be one of the causes of effecting the antiviral function of NK ceils to induce the persistence of hepatitis B virus(HBV) infection.