RESEARCH - The putative protective role of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection against autoimmune disorders

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Autoimmun Rev. 2008 Jul 3.

The putative protective role of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection

against autoimmune disorders.

Ram M, Anaya JM, Barzilai O, Izhaky D, Porat Katz BS, Blank M,

- R, Shoenfeld Y.

Center for Autoimmune Diseases, Department of Medicine 'B', Sheba

Medical Center, Israel.

BACKGROUND: The etiology of autoimmune diseases is not fully clarified

and the mechanisms underlying their initiation and progression are

still obscure. It is becoming clear that in a genetic susceptible

individual an environmental trigger such as infectious agent in

general and viruses in particular could initiate the development of an

autoimmune disease. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is notorious in its

association with diverse autoimmune diseases. Therefore, we aimed to

determine the presence of hepatitis B core antibody (HBcAb), a

seromarker for past or present infection with HBV, in a large number

of sera collected from patients with different autoimmune diseases.

METHODS: A cohort of 675 sera samples of 5 different autoimmune

diseases and healthy donors were screened for evidence of a prior

infection with HBV. All samples were tested for hepatitis B core

antibody (IgG) using the Monolisa anti-HBc PLUS commercial kit

(Bio-Rad, Hercules, San Francisco, USA). RESULTS: Lower percentage of

HBcAb was found in sera of the autoimmune diseases when compared to

normal controls. Fifteen (10.7%) from 140 normal controls were found

positive for the presence of HBcAb. Two (2%) out of 98 multiple

sclerosis (MS) sera were positive for the presence of HBcAb (OR: 0.17,

95%CI: 0.03-0.77, p=0.01), 3 (2.5%) out of 117 systemic lupus

erythematosus (SLE) sera (OR: 0.2, 95%CI: 0.06-0.77, p=0.01), 4 (4.5%)

out of 89 type 1 diabetes (T1D), 5 (6.1%) from 82 Sjogren's syndrome

(SS) sera and 12 (8%) from 149 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) sera were

positive for the presence of HBcAb.

CONCLUSIONS: Our data divulge an unexpected low percentage of

antibodies to HBcAg in patients with SLE, MS and T1D in comparison to

healthy matched donors. This finding may raise a protective role to

HBV in some autoimmune diseases i.e. hygiene theory.

PMID: 18603025

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18603025?ordinalpos=8 & itool=EntrezSystem2.PEn\

trez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

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