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. 2025 Mar 24;17(4):462.
doi: 10.3390/v17040462.

Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection and HLA Variations in a Greek Population

Evangelia Myserli  1 , Ioannis Goulis  2 , Asimina Fylaktou  3 , Maria Exindari  1 , Fani Minti  1 , Georgia Chatzika  3 , Eleni Iliopoulou  3 , Polyxeni Agorastou  2 , Ioanna Papagiouvanni  2 , Theodora Oikonomou  2 , Georgia Gioula  1
Affiliations

Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection and HLA Variations in a Greek Population

Evangelia Myserli et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Chronic hepatitis B is linked with considerable liver-related morbidity and mortality globally. Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) polymorphisms affect the susceptibility and outcome of many immune-mediated diseases and infections. Our aim was to study the impact of HLA alleles on HVB-infected individuals in a Greek population. In total, 107 patients with chronic HBV infection (cHBV group) and 101 with spontaneous clearance (SC-group) of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) were genotyped for HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-C, HLA-DRB1, and HLA-DQB1 loci by single-specific primer polymerase chain reaction (PCR-SSP). The HLA alleles' frequencies were compared between the two patient groups and healthy individuals from the North Greece Bone Marrow Donor Registry (14506 samples). We found a significantly increased frequency of HLA-C*01 and HLA-DRB1*16 alleles in the cHBV group versus the SC-group. The frequency of HLA-A*01, HLA-B*08, HLA-C*01, HLA-C*08, HLA-DRB1*03, and HLA-DQB1*05 alleles was significantly higher in cHBV patients versus healthy individuals, while the frequency of the HLA-B*38 allele was significantly lower. Our study showed an association of specific HLA alleles with either susceptibility or protection against chronic HBV infection.

Keywords: HBV clearance; HBV virus; HLA class I alleles; HLA class II alleles; chronic HBV infection.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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