Applied Cell Biology

Subversion of cellular inhibitor of apoptosis protein 2 gene expression in hepatitis B virus infected peripheral blood mononuclear cells

R.M.Mukherjee, Gelli Veena Shravanti, Asha Latha Jangala, P.N.Rao, D.N.Reddy

¹AsianHealthCareFoundation, Somajiguda,Hyderabad, 500082, (INDIA)
²Asian Institute ofGastroenterology, Somajiguda,Hyderabad, 500082, (INDIA)

Abstract

Members of cellular inhibitor of apoptotic protein family (cIAP) plays crucial role in regulating cellular apoptosis. Overexpression of cIAP2gene has been implicated in promoting hepatitis B virus (HBV) mediated hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). cIAP2 has also been shown to inhibitHBV replication by in vitro studies.

Since the expression status of cIAP2 has not been studied in HBV infected cells frompatients, we tried to evaluate the same in peripheral bloodmononuclear cells of HBV infected subjects.

A total of 42 HBV infected subjects were clarified for their status of infection by biochemical,serological and real time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay. Total RNAobtained from isolated PBMCs were subjected to reverse transcription PCR for amplification of cIAP2 mRNA. HBV pregenomic RNA (pgRNA)was also evaluated as a marker of intracellular viral replication. PBMCs from 24 healthy voluntary blood donors were used as control cells.

In comparison to controls,expression of cIAP2 was significantly (p=0.001)downregulated in infected PBMCs obtained frompatients. Considering the role of cIAP2 expression in controlling viral infection,the present finding is indicative ofHBVmediated inhibition of antiviral defensemechanism of infected host cell that favor viral persistence in the host cell.

Keywords:

Gene expression; Hepatitis B virus; cIAP2; Peripheral blood mononuclear cells.