Relationship between expression of HBcAg in liver tissue and characteristics of the hepatic pathological features in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection

Objective To explore the relationship between expression of HBcAg in liver tissue, subcellular localization of HBcAg and serum HBeAg expression, and level of HBV replication and histologic activity.Methods We enrolled 371 patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection who underwent liver biopsy at Tianjin Infectious disease Specialty Hospital between 2008-2010.The levels of alanine aminotransferase and HBV DNA level were simultaneously measured.The positive rate of serum HBeAg, the level of HBV DNA.histologic activity in the patients with negative expression of HBcAg and nHBcAg, cHBcAg, n-cHBcAg expression were compared.At the same time, delect the difference of the expression of HBcAg at different age-stage in HBeAg-positive patients and HBeAg-negative was observed.Results The seropositive rate of HBeAg was 33.1% in patients with negative expression of HBcAg, 68.7% in those with nHBcAg, 62.3% in those with cHBcAg, and 84.5% in those with n-cHBcAg (P<0.01) .The percentage of patients with G≥2 was lower (21.5% vs.34.3%、67.7%、69.1%, P<0.01) for the negative expression of HBcAg (cHBcAg) than for the nHBcAg 、cHBcAg、 c-nHBcAg expression.Among them, the percentage of patients with G≥2 for the cHBcAg and c-nHBcAg expression is higher than the nHBcAg expression (P<0.01) .The serum HBV DNA level was higher in nHBcAg among the groups.Among the serum HBeAg positive group, the expression rate of nHBcAg in≤20 age stage, 20-39 age stage and ≥40 age stage was 61.5%, 11.5% and 12.3% respectively.The age-dependent increase of cHBcAg、c-nHBcAg expression rate was observed (23.1%/7.7%;26.4%/30.8%;28.4%/45.4%) , there was a statistical significance in the difference (χ2=53.74, P<0.01) .Among the cases in serum HBeAg negative group, the negative rate for HBcAg in≤20 age stage, 20-39 age stage and ≥40 age stage was 68.1%, 61.5% and 40.4% respectively.The age-dependent increase of cHBcAg、 c-nHBcAg expression rate was observed. (4.6%/4.6%;19.3%/7.7%;26.9%/20.4%) , but there was no significant difference (χ2=8.94, P>0.05) .Conclusion The expression of HBcAg for the patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection was related to the serum HBeAg expression.The histologic grade of hepatitis were significantly correlated with the subcellular localization of intrahepatic HBcAg.There were different characteristic for the expression of HBcAg in the different age stage, perhaps due to the different natural history stage.