Relationship between the intrahepatic expression of interferon-alpha receptor mRNA and the histological progress of hepatitis C virus-associated chronic liver diseases

Histological progress is one of the predictors of an unfavourable response to interferon (IFN) therapy in hepatitis C virus (HCV)-associated chronic liver diseases (CLD). The aim of the present study was to investigate whether histological progress has an association with the expression of IFN receptor (IFN-Rc) in the liver. Expression of mRNA of the IFN-Rc for IFN-alpha was investigated by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction using liver biopsy specimens from 37 HCV-associated CLD comprising 11 liver cirrhosis (LC) and 26 chronic hepatitis (CH) cases. IFN-alpha and IFN-beta mRNA were detected in over 90% of subjects. In contrast, the detection rate of IFN-Rc mRNA in chronic persistant hepatitis, chronic hepatitis 2A, chronic hepatitis 2B and liver cirrhosis (LC) was 100, 71.4, 22.2 and 0%, respectively. The absence of IFN-Rc mRNA was significantly associated with the severity of fibrosis of the liver. These results indicated that IFN-Rc expression decreases with the histological progress of the disease, suggesting that lower expression of IFN-Rc mRNA may be partially responsible for the poor IFN response in LC.