Negative Association of Plasma Levels of Vitamin D and miR-378 With Viral Load in Patients With Chronic Hepatitis B Infection

Background: chronic hepatitis b (chb) is accompanied by inflammation of liver because of infection with hepatitis b virus (hbv). previous studies revealed an inverse association between vitamin d and hbv dna levels. objectives: the current study aimed to investigate the levels of 25 (oh) d3 (the steady form of vitamin d), mir-378 and hbv dna in the patients with chb. patients and methods: one hundred and seventy three patients with hbeag negative chb were recruited for the study. plasma levels of hbvdna and 25 (oh) d3 were quantified. the expression level of mir-378 in plasma was measured by a relative quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qrt-pcr) assay. results: in the pathway regression analysis, the plasma level of 25 (oh) d3 showed a significant inverse correlation with plasma levels of hbv dna (-0.198, p = 0.008) and direct correlation with mir-378 (0.188, p = 0.013). similarly plasma level of mir-378 had inverse association with hbv dna level (-0.177, p = 0.020). conclusions: these results suggest that vitamin d could involve in a mirna- mediated regulatory pathway in control of hbv replication. further studies are recommended to understand the effects of mir-378 and anti-infective action of vitamin d on hepatitis b virus.