Background and aim: Assessment of therapeutic response is important for monitoring the prognosis
and to take decision for cessation of nucleoside analogues therapy in chronic hepatitis B patients. In
addition to serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), hepatitis B virus (HBV) deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
load and HBeAg status, identification of molecular markers associated with host immune response
would be essential to assess therapeutic response. In this regard the current study was performed
with the aim to detect expression of platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule (PECAM)-1 gene in
peripheral blood monocytes (PBMCs) of treated chronic hepatitis B patients and also to correlate
expression of this gene with serum HBV DNA load and serum ALT levels.
Materials and methods: The study analyzed 60 chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients, including 30
untreated and 30 nucleoside analogs treated and 10 healthy controls. PECAM-1 gene expression/
transcripts were detected by conventional RT-PCR.
Results: The expression PECAM-1 mRNA in the PBMCs of CHB patients was significantly higher in
untreated (3.17 ± 0.75) than the treated patients (1.64 ± 0.29) (p < 0.01). Expression of PECAM-1 was
positively correlated with serum ALT levels of both untreated (r = 0.580) and treated (r = 0.566) CHB
patients. Moreover, in both untreated and treated groups, these gene expressions were positively
correlated to serum HBV DNA load with the correlation coefficient r = 0.545 and r = 0.591 respectively.
Conclusion: PECAM-1 may be used as a biomarker for assessment of inflammatory activity as well
as therapeutic response in CHB patients.