Interleukin-35 Level Is Reduced in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection

Backgrounds: As one of the major public health problems, the hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection would activate the immune system.The outcome of HBV infection was affect significantly by the interactions between HBV and host immune response.Interleukins play important role in anti-viral immunity.Here we investigated the role of interleukin-35 (IL-35) in chronic HBV infection patients.Methods/Results: Serum IL-35 in 72 chronic hepatitis B virus infection patients and 41 healthy control subjects were analyzed by ELISA assay.The mRNA level of IL-35 in PBMCs was determined by RT-qPCR.In this study, we found that both protein and mRNA levels of IL-35 were significantly decreased in chronic HBV patients compared to the healthy controls.Furthermore, the statistical analysis found that serum IL-35 was significantly associated with HBV DNA (P =0.0158), ALT (P =0.0003), AST (P =0.0216), TB (P =0.0270) and AFP (P =0.0369).Importantly, correlation analysis also found that serum IL-35 level was negatively correlated with HBV DNA copies, ALT, AST, TB and AFP.Meanwhile, IL-35 treatment inhibited the level of HBV DNA, HBsAg and HBeAg in HepAD38 cells.Conclusion: Our study identified that IL-35 may be a novel marker associated with HBV infection and hepatocytes injury.These data suggested the potential use of IL-35 in the HBV treatment.