Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Mar 29;7(1):15-21.
doi: 10.2478/jtim-2019-0004. eCollection 2019 Mar.

Importance of Studying the Levels of Hepcidin and Vitamin D in Egyptian Children with Chronic Hepatitis C

Amal Ahmed Mohamed  1 , Eman R Abd Almonaem  2 , Amira I Mansour  3 , HebatAllah Fadel Algebaly  4 , Rania Abdelmonem Khattab  5 , Yasmine S El Abd  6
Affiliations

Importance of Studying the Levels of Hepcidin and Vitamin D in Egyptian Children with Chronic Hepatitis C

Amal Ahmed Mohamed et al. J Transl Int Med. .

Abstract

Background and objective: Hepcidin is the key regulator of iron metabolism and is a significant biomarker for systemic inflammatory states. Vitamin D is a powerful immunomodulator and plays a significant role in the inflammatory responses and fibrosis occurring due to hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. This study assessed the level of vitamin D and serum hepcidin and its expression in peripheral blood of children with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) and correlated them with other serum markers to reflect iron metabolism and liver disease severity.

Methods: A total of 100 children were included in this study: 50 with HCV infection and 50 healthy controls. Biochemical parameters together with vitamin D, hepcidin, and its expression were all measured.

Results: The level of hepcidin and its expression together with vitamin D and hepcidin-to-ferritin (H/F) ratios were significantly reduced in patients, but the iron and ferritin levels were higher (P<0.001). Serum hepcidin level showed significant positive correlation with hepcidin expression, HCV titer, iron, ferritin, and H/F ratio (r = 0.43, 0.31, 0.34, 0.28, and 0.91, respectively) but significant negative correlation with vitamin D (r = -0.37). Both hepcidin and ferritin were higher in patients with Child Pugh scores B and C than those with score A (P<0.001).

Conclusion: Measuring serum hepcidin and its expression together with vitamin D levels in patients may have a prognostic value and is promising in the follow-up of the severity of liver disease.

Keywords: hepatitis C; hepcidin; hepcidin-to-ferritin ratio; vitamin D.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest The authors report no conflict of interests

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Correlation between hepatitis C virus titre and level of hepcidin expression HCV titre was measured by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) quantitative assays using ARTUS Qiagen kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) in copy numbers. Quantification of hepcidin (HAMP) gene was performed on RNA extracted from peripheral blood of all patients using TaqMan_ GeneExpression assay (Applied Biosystems Inc, Foster City, CA, USA). Relative mRNA quantification was calculated using the arithmetic formula 2 − ΔC T, where ΔCT is the difference between the CT of a hepcidin mRNA expression and B-actin. The results show that there is positive significant fair correlation between hepcidin expression and HCV PCR titre with correlation coefficient (r) = 0.31 and P-value = 0.03
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Anderson G, Frazer D. Hepatic iron metabolism. Semin Liver Dis. 2005;25:420–32. - PubMed
    1. Nemeth E. Hepcidin biology and therapeutic applications. Expert Rev Hematol. 2010;3:153–5. - PubMed
    1. Nemeth E, Valore EV, Territo M, Schiller G, Lichtenstein A, Ganz T. Hepcidin, a putative mediator of anemia of inflammation, is a type II acute-phase protein. Blood. 2003;101:2461–3. - PubMed
    1. Viatte L, Vaulont S. Hepcidin, the iron watcher. Biochimie. 2009;91:1223–8. - PubMed
    1. Miura K, Taura K, Kodama Y, Schnabl B, Brenner DA. Hepatitis C virus-induced oxidative stress suppresses hepcidin expression through increased histone deacetylase activity. Hepatology. 2008;48:1420–9. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources