title: High serum resistin associates with intrahepatic inflammation and necrosis: an index of disease severity for patients with chronic HBV infection.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Studies have revealed that resistin plays a role as an intrahepatic cytokine with proinflammatory activities. This study investigated the association between serum resistin and fibrosis severity and the possible marker role of resistin in the inflammatory process of chronic hepatitis B.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this study, 234 subjects with HBV infection were retrospectively selected, including 85 patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB), 70 patients with HBV-related liver cirrhosis (LC-B), and 79 patients with HBV-related liver failure (LF-B). Serum levels of resistin, IL-1, IL-6, IL-17, IL-23, TNF-α, and TGF-β1 were assayed by ELISA. Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients were extracted from clinical databases of Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, including serum levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), total bilirubin (TBil), and liver stiffness (LS).
  
  
  RESULTS
  All the selected patients with HBV infection showed significantly increased levels of serum resistin, which was rarely detectable in the healthy controls. Serum resistin levels in patients with CHB, LC-B, and LF-B were 4.119 ± 5.848 ng/mL, 6.370 ± 6.834 ng/mL, and 6.512 ± 6.076 ng/mL, respectively. Compared with the CHB group, patients with LC-B or LF-B presented with significantly higher serum levels of resistin (p < 0.01). On the other hand, all of the enrolled patients had high serum levels of IL-1, IL-6, IL-17, TNF-α, and TGF-β1, but not IL-23. Interestingly, serum levels of resistin was significantly positively correlated with serum levels of TGF-β1 in LC-B patients (R = 0.3090, p = 0.0290), with IL-17 in LC-B (R = 0.4022, p = 0.0038) and LF-B patients (R = 0.5466, p < 0.0001), and with AST (R = 0.4501, p = 0.0036) and LS (R = 0.3415, p = 0.0310) in CHB patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  High serum resistin associates with intrahepatic inflammation and necrosis and may be used as an index of disease severity for patients with chronic HBV infection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China.|Institute of Biomedicine, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China.
authors.forename: Zhongji
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.affiliation: Institute of Wudang Chinese Medicine, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China.
authors.forename: Yonghong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedicine, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China.
authors.forename: Zhiqiang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China.|Department of Infectious Diseases, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Zhangzhidong Road. 99, 430060, Wuhan, China.
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China.
authors.forename: Yinhua
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China.
authors.forename: Deqiang
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China.
authors.forename: Changzheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ke
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China.
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, South Renmin Road. 32, 442000, Shiyan, Hubei, China. luojie_001@126.com.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Zhangzhidong Road. 99, 430060, Wuhan, China. zjgong@163.com.
authors.forename: Zuojiong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gong
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000410:Alanine Transaminase / Q000097:blood; D001219:Aspartate Aminotransferases / Q000097:blood; D001653:Bile Ducts, Intrahepatic / Q000473:pathology* / Q000821:virology; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D002761:Cholangitis / Q000473:pathology* / Q000821:virology; D016207:Cytokines / Q000097:blood; D005260:Female; D019694:Hepatitis B, Chronic / Q000097:blood* / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008103:Liver Cirrhosis / Q000097:blood / Q000150:complications / Q000821:virology; D017093:Liver Failure / Q000097:blood / Q000150:complications / Q000821:virology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009336:Necrosis / Q000821:virology; D052243:Resistin / Q000097:blood*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D016207:Cytokines; C499624:RETN protein, human; D052243:Resistin; D001219:Aspartate Aminotransferases; D000410:Alanine Transaminase
keywords: Hepatitis B; Liver cirrhosis; Liver failure; Proinflammatory cytokines; Resistin