1. HBV replication is significantly reduced by IL-6.
- Author
-
Kuo TM, Hu CP, Chen YL, Hong MH, Jeng KS, Liang CC, Chen ML, and Chang C
- Subjects
- Cells, Cultured, Genome, Viral, Hepatitis B metabolism, Hepatitis B virus drug effects, Hepatitis B virus genetics, Humans, Nucleocapsid metabolism, Hepatitis B virus physiology, Interleukin-6 pharmacology, Virus Replication drug effects
- Abstract
Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a pleiotropic cytokine with pivotal functions in the regulation of the biological responses of several target cells including hepatocytes. The level of serum IL-6 has been reported to be elevated in patients with chronic hepatitis B, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma and represents the best marker of HBV-related clinical progression as compared with several other cytokines. In this study, we found that IL-6 was able to effectively suppress hepatitis B virus (HBV) replication and prevent the accumulation of HBV covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) in a human hepatoma cell line. We also demonstrated that the suppression of HBV replication by IL-6 requires concurrently a moderate reduction of viral transcripts/core proteins and a marked decrease in viral genome-containing nucleocapsids. Studies on the stability of existing viral capsids suggest that the IL-6 effect on the reduction of genome-containing nucleocapsids is mediated through the prevention of the formation of genome-containing nucleocapsids, which is similar to the effect of interferons. However, IFN-alpha/beta and IFN-gamma did not participate in the IL-6-induced suppression of HBV replication. Taken together, our results will provide important information to better understand the role of IL-6 in the course of HBV infection.
- Published
- 2009
- Full Text
- View/download PDF