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Journal of Virology, July 2001, p. 6209-6211, Vol. 75, No. 13
0022-538X/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.75.13.6209-6211.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Elevated Levels of Interleukin-8 in Serum Are
Associated with Hepatitis C Virus Infection and Resistance to
Interferon Therapy
Stephen J.
Polyak,1,*
Khalid S. A.
Khabar,2
Mohammed
Rezeiq,3 and
David R.
Gretch1
Department of Laboratory Medicine, University
of Washington, Seattle, Washington,1 and
Departments of Biological and Medical
Research2 and
Gastroenterology,3 King Faisal
Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia
Received 29 January 2001/Accepted 2 April 2001
 |
ABSTRACT |
Hepatitis C virus (HCV), a major cause of liver disease worldwide,
is frequently resistant to the antiviral alpha interferon (IFN). We
have recently found that the HCV NS5A protein induces expression of the
proinflammatory chemokine IL-8 to partially inhibit the antiviral
actions of IFN in vitro. To extend these observations, in the present
study we examined the relationship between levels of IL-8 in serum, HCV
infection, and biochemical response to IFN therapy. Levels of IL-8 were
significantly elevated in 132 HCV-infected patients compared to levels
in 32 normal healthy subjects and were also significantly higher in
patients who did not respond to IFN therapy than in patients who did
respond to therapy. This study suggests that HCV-induced changes in
levels of chemokine and cytokine expression may be involved in HCV
antiviral resistance, persistence, and pathogenesis.
 |
TEXT |
Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV)
infection is a significant clinical problem throughout the world. About
85% of people infected with HCV develop chronic infection, and
approximately 70% of patients develop histological evidence of chronic
liver disease (9).
Interferon (IFN) and the guanosine analogue ribavirin are widely used
treatments for chronic HCV infection (5, 11, 17). However,
as many as 60% of patients with high-titer HCV genotype 1 infections
remain nonresponsive to combination therapy.
The HCV NS5A protein has been implicated in the resistance of HCV to
antiviral therapy (reviewed in reference 14). We have recently found that NS5A induces the CXC chemokine interleukin 8 (IL-8)
to inhibit the antiviral actions of IFN in vitro (15). To
investigate the clinical significance of these results, in this study
we investigated the relationship among levels of IL-8 and tumor
necrosis factor alpha (TNF-
) (a potent inducer of IL-8 [12]) in serum, HCV infection, and response to IFN therapy.
One hundred thirty-two patients from Saudi Arabia with hepatitis C
disease were studied. Diagnosis was reached using appropriate serological, virological, biochemical, and histological criteria. All
sera from patients diagnosed to have chronic hepatitis C showed elevated liver enzymes, tested positive for anti-HCV antibodies by a
second-generation enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and were
confirmed to be reactive with HCV recombinant immunoblot assay-2.
Patients with hepatitis B surface antigen positivity, autoimmune
disease, alcohol- or drug-induced liver diseases, hepatic failure,
decompensated cirrhosis, schistosoma mansoni, or hematological abnormalities were excluded from the study. Genotypes were not determined, although the predominant HCV genotypes in Saudi Arabia are
genotype 4 and 1 (2, 19). IFN-
2a was administered
intramuscularly three times per week at 3 million U per dose. The study
was performed with the approval of the King Faisal Specialist Hospital
and Research Centre research advisory council. Response to therapy was
assessed biochemically based on normalization of alanine
aminotransferase values 6 months after termination of therapy.
To measure IL-8 protein levels in patient serum, the following ELISA
protocol was followed. High-level-binding microtiter plates (Lab
Systems, Helsinki, Finland) were coated overnight with 2 µg of
monoclonal antibodies to IL-8 (R&D Systems) and blocked with 2%
Dulbecco's phosphate-buffered saline buffer. Samples or a recombinant
IL-8 standard (obtained from K. Matsushima, University of Tokyo),
diluted in human serum, was added to the microwells for 2 h, and
the plates were then washed with 0.1% Tween 20-bovine serum
albumin-Dulbecco's phosphate-buffered saline buffer. Polyclonal antibodies to IL-8 (Genzyme, Boston, Mass.) were added. After extensive
washing, horseradish peroxidase-conjugated anti-rabbit immunoglobulin G
(Accurate Chemicals, Westbury, N.Y.) was added and the plates were
further washed before the substrate TMB-H2O2 (KPL, Gaithersburg, Md.) was added. When color developed, the reaction
was stopped with 2 N H2SO4 and absorbance was
read at 450 nm in an automated ELISA plate reader. A standard curve of optical densities versus concentrations of IL-8 was generated to
determine the concentrations of IL-8 in serum samples. The detection
limit of the assay was 2 pg/ml. TNF-
in serum samples was
quantitated using a TNF-
high-sensitivity ELISA kit (R&D Systems).
The detection limit was 0.5 pg/ml. Patient groups were tested for
Gaussian distribution using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The
nonparametric Mann-Whitney test was used for unpaired comparisons of
levels of TNF-
and IL-8 in patient sera. Data are presented as
means ± standard errors of the means (SEM).
HCV infection and levels of IL-8 and TNF-
in serum.
We
first measured the levels of IL-8 in the sera of 132 patients with
chronic hepatitis C and 32 healthy control subjects to determine if
serum IL-8 levels are associated with HCV infection. Furthermore, since
TNF-
is a primary inducer of IL-8, we also examined TNF-
levels
in the sera of the same patients. Figure 1 depicts levels in sera of IL-8 (Fig.
1A) and TNF-
(Fig. 1B) as detected by ELISA for the two patient
groups. The mean levels of IL-8 were significantly higher in patients
with chronic hepatitis C than in normal subjects (1,731 ± 290 pg/ml versus 12.35 ± 7.0 [means ± SEM], P < 0.0001). The mean level of TNF-
was also significantly higher
in HCV-infected patients than in normal healthy subjects (12.46 ± 1.4 pg/ml versus 6.11 ± 3.3 [means ± SEM], P < 0.001).

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FIG. 1.
Determination of levels of IL-8 and TNF- in the sera
of HCV-infected patients and control patients not infected with HCV.
(A) Levels of IL-8 in sera were determined by a specific ELISA of 132 HCV-infected patients (triangles) and 32 healthy subjects (squares).
The difference in IL-8 levels between infected patients and healthy
control subjects was highly significant (P < 0.0001).
(B) Serum TNF- levels, determined by a specific ELISA with the same
group of patients. The levels of TNF- in HCV-infected patient sera
were significantly higher than in healthy control subjects
(P < 0.0001). Data are expressed as means ± SEM.
P values were derived from a two-tailed probability
generated from a Mann-Whitney test.
|
|
Levels of IL-8 in serum and response to IFN therapy.
Figure
2 depicts the association between levels
of IL-8 in serum and the biochemical response to IFN therapy in the
HCV-infected patients. Response to therapy was defined by normalization
of ALT levels 6 months following termination of therapy. There was a
stepwise increase in pretreatment levels of IL-8, with biochemical nonresponders having the highest IL-8 levels (2,727 ± 951 pg/ml), followed by partial responders (2,409 ± 986 pg/ml) and then
responders (1,606 ± 773 pg/ml). Nonresponsive patients had
significantly higher levels of IL-8 than responsive patients
(P < 0.001), and responders also had significantly
lower levels of IL-8 than patients who were not treated (P < 0.001). These data indicate that HCV infection is associated
with elevated levels of IL-8 and TNF-
in serum, that high levels of
IL-8 are associated with the lack of a biochemical response to IFN
therapy, and that IFN therapy reduces the expression of IL-8.

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FIG. 2.
Pretreatment levels of IL-8 are correlated with the
response to IFN therapy. We measured by ELISA IL-8 levels in patients
with hepatitis C disease who were not treated (n = 33)
or who were complete responders (R; n = 18), partial
responders (PR; n = 18), or nonresponders (NR; n = 17) to IFN- therapy. A complete response to IFN- therapy was
assessed biochemically via normalization of ALT levels to normal levels
for more than 6 months after cessation of therapy. Data are expressed
as means ± SEM. P values were derived from a
two-tailed probability generated from a Mann-Whitney test.
|
|
We demonstrate significant increases in levels of IL-8 in HCV-infected
patients compared to levels in uninfected patients,
and patients who
were biochemical nonresponders to IFN therapy
had higher pretreatment
levels of IL-8. These in vivo data corroborate
our recent finding that
the HCV NS5A protein induces IL-8 mRNA
and protein expression via
transcriptional activation of the IL-8
promoter (
15).
Because NS5A exists as a quasispecies in vivo
(
13,
16), it
is possible that clinical isolates of NS5A may
have different IL-8
transactivation activities which may lead
to different levels of IL-8
in serum and different responses to
IFN therapy. Although HCV genotype
was not evaluated in the patients
analyzed in this study, the prevalent
genotypes in Saudi Arabia
are types 4 and 1 (
2,
19), and
similar to what has been observed
in U.S. studies, types 1 and 4 tend
to be quite resistant to IFN
therapy (
1,
3). In future
studies, it will be interesting
to explore the relationship between
levels of IL-8 in serum, NS5A
amino acid sequence, HCV genotype, and
virological response to
therapy.
NS5A induction of IL-8 expression is associated with inhibition of the
antiviral actions of IFN in vitro (
15). This may
represent
a distinct mechanism by which the NS5A protein circumvents
the
IFN-induced antiviral response. It was recently demonstrated
that the
HCV core protein could also transactivate the IL-8 promoter
(
8). However, in this study, only truncated IL-8 promoters
were used and the effect of core protein expression on IL-8 mRNA
and
protein levels was not investigated. Nonetheless, it is possible
that
other HCV proteins contribute to induction of IL-8 and perhaps
that
other cytokines affect responses to antiviral therapy and
influence HCV
persistence and pathogenesis. In other clinical
studies, it has been
demonstrated that chronic hepatitis C patients
with high histologic
activities have increased levels of IL-8
mRNA expression (
6,
18). In one study, levels of intrahepatic
IL-8 mRNA were higher
in IFN nonresponders than in responders,
although the difference was
not statistically significant (
6).
In agreement with the
present study, one previous study also found
that serum IL-8 protein
levels were elevated in HCV-infected patients
(
7). To our
knowledge, this is the first study to examine serum
IL-8 levels and the
biochemical response to IFN therapy. In alcoholic
hepatitis, serum IL-8
levels are elevated (
10), and several
studies suggest a
relationship between hepatic IL-8 and neutrophil
infiltration (reviewed
in reference
4). Thus, the association
of IL-8 with viral
and nonviral hepatitis suggests that this chemokine
may play a role in
the pathogenesis of liver
disease.
 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
This research was partially supported by an NIH Hepatitis C
Cooperative Center Pilot Feasibility Grant and Schering-Plough (S.J.P.), the University of Washington Royalty Research Fund and NIH
grants AI41320-02 and AI39049-02 (D.R.G.), and the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre (K.S.A.K.). S.J.P. is a Liver
Scholar of the American Liver Foundation.
 |
FOOTNOTES |
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Virology
Division, Box 359690, 325 9th Ave., Seattle, WA 98104-2499. Phone:
(206) 341-5224. Fax: (206) 341-5203. E-mail:
polyak{at}u.washington.edu.
 |
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Journal of Virology, July 2001, p. 6209-6211, Vol. 75, No. 13
0022-538X/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.75.13.6209-6211.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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