Immunochemical Studies On Patients Infected With Different Hepatitis C Virus Genotypes

The present study aimed to estimate different HCV genotypes in some Egyptian patients with chronic liver disease. Serum from patients positive for HCV antibodies were used in this study, in addition to 10 healthy controls. HCV-RNA and HCV genotypes were conducted using type-specific primers to amplify the core region of HCV genome. The levels of IFNgamma and TNF-alpha, PIIINP, SOD enzyme were also determined. The results showed that genotype 4 was the prevalent one (88.57%).Genotype 3 was found mixed with genotype 2 and 4 (11.42% and 34.28% respectively). Genotype 1 was absent from patients under study. No significant differences were observed in the level of IFN-gamma interferon, SOD enzyme and ALT enzyme between those genotypes. On the other hand, the level of TNF-alpha was greatly increased(P 0.05 and 0.001 respectively) in patients infected with mixed HCV genotypes 3, 4 compared with patients with genotype 4 and those infected with mixed genotypes 2, 3. Otherwise PIIINP was decreased significantly(P 0.05) of the same group compared with other groups. In conclusion, HCV type IV is the prevalent genotype in Egypt. The results of our study suggest that no obvious difference between single infection with genotype 4 and mixed infection with different HCV genotype in the cellular immunity, antioxidant status, liver enzyme (ALT). Unexplained differences were observed in the level of fibrosis marker and inflammatory cytokine TNF-alpha