molecular and antigenic tissue impact of viral infections on liver transplant patients with neonatal hepatitis

Pathogenesis of neonatal hepatitis relates to various underlying causes including viral infections. Both hepatotropic and non-hepatotropic viruses may induce liver failures in infants before birth, during delivery, or shortly after birth. The tissue impact of HCMV, HSV, HBV, HCV, and rotavirus and adenovirus infections was evaluated in studied infants with neonatal hepatitis. The history of viral infections was analyzed in paraffin-embedded biopsy and autopsy tissues of 22 infants with neonatal hepatitis between years 1996 and 2007, retrospectively. The tissue molecular presentation of HBV, HCV, HCMV, HSV, adenovirus, and rotavirus was evaluated by different qualitative simple and nested PCR and RT-PCR protocols. Immunohistochemistry [IHC] method was used for studying the antigenic prevalence of HSV-1, 2; HBV, HCMV and adenovirus infections. Also the laboratory liver indices of all patients with neonatal hepatitis were analyzed. The HBV and HSV genomes were detected in 3 [14%] of 22 infants. The rotavirus and HCV-RNA and also the HCMV-DNA were detected separately in 1 [4%] of 26 paraffin-embedded autopsy and biopsy tissues. The HBV and HSV-1 specific antigens were separately diagnosed in 1 [4%] of 26 neonatal samples by IHC protocols. Also the HSV-2 antigen was seen in 5 [23%] of 22 liver autopsy and biopsy specimens. Co-infections with HCMV, HSV, HBV, HCV, and rotavirus were detected in these infants with hepatitis. Diagnosis of single and mixed molecular and antigenic traces of HCMV, HSV, HBV, HCV and rotavirus underlines the etiologic role of these viruses in clinical pathogenesis of neonatal hepatitis

Hepatitis G virus infection in hemodialysis and continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis patients

To determine the prevalence and clinical relevance of HGV infection in dialysis patients, we performed a cross-sectional study of 61 HD patients and 79 Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis (CAPD) patients. HGV-RNA was identified by reverse-transcription (RT) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay with primers from the 5'-untranslated region of the viral genome. The prevalence of HGV infection was similar in HD and CAPD patients (9.8% vs. 12.7%), while that of HCV infection was significantly higher in HD patients compared to CAPD patients (16.4% vs. 1.3%, p < 0.05). The mean age (49.2 +/- 13.4 vs. 46.7 +/- 13.0 years), male to female ratio (2.4:1 vs. 1.3:1), history of transfusion (62.3% vs. 49.4%), history of hepatitis (27.9% vs. 26.6%), mean ALT level during the previous 6 months (22.4 +/- 37.9 vs. 14.0 +/- 7.4 IU/L), and the prevalence of HBsAg (8.2% vs. 6.3%) showed no difference between HD and CAPD patients. In both HD and CAPD patients, the presence of HGV RNA was not related to age, sex, duration of dialysis, history of transfusion, history of hepatitis, or to the presence of HBV or HCV markers. There was no significant difference in the clinical and biochemical data between patients with isolated HGV infection (n = 12) and patients without viremia (n = 106). The clinical feature of patients coinfected with HGV and HBV (n = 2), or HGV and HCV (n = 2) seemed to be similar to those of patients with isolated HBV (n = 8) or HCV (n = 9) infection. In conclusion, the prevalence of HGV infection was not different between HD and CAPD patients, and HGV infections did not seem to be associated with clinically significant hepatitis. The routes of HGV transmission, other than transfusion or contamination during HD procedure, were suspected.