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. 2024 Nov 15;230(5):e1171-e1175.
doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiae054.

New Window Into Hepatitis B in Africa: Liver Sampling Combined With Single-Cell Omics Enables Deep and Longitudinal Assessment of Intrahepatic Immunity in Zambia

Taonga Musonda  1 , Michael S Wallace  2 , Hailey Patel  2 , Owen P Martin  2 , Christopher Oetheimer  2 , Simutanyi Mwakamui  1 , Edford Sinkala  1   3 , Bright Nsokolo  4 , Annie Kanunga  1   5 , Georg Lauer  2 , Raymond T Chung  2 , Gilles Wandeler  6   7 , Debika Bhattacharya  8 , Paul Kelly  1   9 , Nadia Alatrakchi  2 , Michael J Vinikoor  3   5   10
Affiliations

New Window Into Hepatitis B in Africa: Liver Sampling Combined With Single-Cell Omics Enables Deep and Longitudinal Assessment of Intrahepatic Immunity in Zambia

Taonga Musonda et al. J Infect Dis. .

Abstract

In Lusaka, Zambia, we introduced liver fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) into a research cohort of adults with treatment-naive chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, with and without human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) coinfection, as well as with acute HBV infection. From 117 enrollment and 47 longitudinal FNABs (at 1-year follow-up), we established participant acceptability and safety. We also demonstrated the quality of the material through single-cell RNA sequencing of selected enrollment FNAs, which revealed a range of immune cells. This approach can drive new insights into HBV immunology, informing cure strategies, and can improve our understanding of HBV natural history in Africa.

Keywords: Africa; hepatitis B virus; human immunodeficiency virus; liver fine-needle aspiration biopsy; single-cell RNA sequencing.

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Conflict of interest statement

Potential conflicts of interest. All authors: No reported conflicts of interest. All authors have submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Conflicts that the editors consider relevant to the content of the manuscript have been disclosed.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Overall summary of the liver FNAB study workflow. At the recruitment site in Zambia, following a safety assessment, liver aspirates were obtained and loaded onto transportable microwell arrays, which were shipped to the processing site in Boston for sequencing and analysis. Abbreviations: FNA, fine-needle aspiration; HBV, hepatitis B virus; HCC, hepatocellular carcinoma; HIV, human immunodeficiency virus; INR, international normalized ratio.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Display of the cell populations obtained from liver FNAB. A, UMAP of single cells annotated by cell type (cells included in analysis have >300 genes, > 500 UMIs, and <40 MT%). B, Dot plot showing marker gene expression for each identified cell type. C, Stacked bar plots grouped by infection status showing the proportion of identified cell types in each enrollment sample. Abbreviations: DC, dendritic cell; FNA, fine-needle aspiration; HBV, hepatitis B virus; HIV, human immunodeficiency virus; MAIT, mucosa-associated invariant T cell; MT, mitochondrial transcript; NK, natural killer cell; UMAP, uniform manifold approximation and projection; UMI, unique molecular identifier.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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