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Liver-restricted Type I Interferon Signature Precedes Liver Damage in Chronic Hepatitis B Patients Stopping Antiviral Therapy

ABSTRACT: Immune-mediated liver damage is the driver of disease progression in patients with chronic Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Liver damage is an antigen-independent process caused by bystander activation of CD8 T cells and NK cells. How bystander lymphocyte activation is initiated in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients remains unclear. Periods of liver damage, called hepatic flares, occur unpredictably, making early events difficult to capture. To address this obstacle, we longitudinally sampled the liver of CHB patients stopping antiviral therapy and analyzed immune composition and activation using flow cytometry and single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). At 4 weeks after stopping therapy, HBV replication rebounded but no liver damage was detectable. There were no changes in cell frequencies at viral rebound. ScRNA-seq revealed upregulation of IFN stimulated genes (ISGs) and pro-inflammatory cytokine MIF at viral rebound in patients that go on to develop hepatic flares 6 – 18 w after stopping therapy. The type I IFN signature was only detectable within the liver and neither IFN-α/β or ISG induction could be detected in the peripheral blood. In vitro experiments confirmed the type I IFN-dependent ISG profile whereas MIF was induced primarily by IL-12. MIF exposure further amplified inflammatory cytokine production by myeloid cells. Our data show that innate immune activation is detectable in the liver before clinically significant liver damage is evident. The combination of type I IFN and enhanced cytokine production upon MIF exposure represent the earliest immunological triggers of lymphocyte bystander activation observed in hepatic flares associated with chronic HBV infection.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE252863 | GEO | 2024/01/14

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Hepatitis B virus (HBV) causes both acute and chronic liver inflammation. Approximately 600,000 CHB patients each year die of HBV-related diseases such as cirrhosis and liver cancer. Therefore, CHB remains a global health concern. Although there have been anti-HBV agents for treating CHB, they have some limitations including viral-drug resistance and adverse effects. Type III IFN or IFN-λ is promising to use as anti-HBV agents because of its anti-viral activities like type I IFNs. In addition, the expression of its receptor, IFNLR1, is limited only in epithelial cells including hepatocytes. Thus, treatment with IFN-lambda results in less side effects compared to IFN-alpha treatment. IFN-lambdas have been shown to inhibit the replication of several viruses including IAV, DENV, EMCV, HIV, HCV, and HBV; however, there have been no studies on the effects of IFN-λ3, the highest activity among other subtypes, on HBV replication. Therefore, this study aims to determine antiviral activities of IFN-λ3 against HBV replication and to investigate its molecular mechanism responsible for suppressing HBV propagation. The results showed that HBV transcripts and amount of intracellular HBV DNA were decreased in HepG2.2.15 cells, stable HBV-transfected hepatoblastoma cell line, treated with IFN-λ3 in a dose-dependent manner. This indicated that IFN-λ3 could inhibit HBV replication. Next, we performed quantitative proteomics to investigate the proteome changes in HepG2.2.15 treated with IFN-λ3. The proteins that changed their expressions were involved in several biological processes such as defense to viral infection, immune responses, cell-cell adhesion, transcription, translation, and metabolism. We further confirmed the proteomics results by immunoblotting assay. Consistent with MS data, it found that the expression of OAS3, SAMHD1 and STAT1 were increased as a result of IFN-λ3 stimulation. These results indicated that proteomics results were reproducible and reliable. Finally, we proposed 3 possible mechanisms involved in suppressing HBV replication including i.) IFN-λ3 induced anti-viral proteins affecting many steps in HBV life cycle ii.) IFN-λ3 promoted antigen processing and antigen presentation and iii.) IFN-λ3 rescued RIG-I signaling to promote both type I and type III IFN production.

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Liver-restricted Type I Interferon Signature Precedes Liver Damage in Chronic Hepatitis B Patients Stopping Antiviral Therapy

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