study the cross-talk between hepatitis b virus infection and interferon regulatory factors in liver transplant patients

Background: interferon regulatory factors (irfs) as immunoregulatory molecules have a determinative antiviral role in liver transplantation outcomes and graft rejection. hepatitis b virus (hbv) and its antigen derivatives also choose some strategies to escape from innate immune responses. objectives: the current studyaimedat evaluatinginflammatory cross-talksbetween pattern recognition receptors (prrs) signaling components such as irf3 and irf7 with hbv infection in mrna levels in patients undergoing liver transplantation. methods: the 46 hbv infected liver recipients were divided into rejection experienced (20) and not experienced (26) groups and a healthy control group was also considered. peripheral mononuclear cells (pbmcs) were isolated form each studied patient on the days 1, 4, and 7 in post-transplant period. after rna extraction and cdna synthesis from each collected sample, the expression levels of irf3 and irf7 genes were evaluated using in-house syber green based the real-time polymerase chain reaction (pcr) protocols. results: the overexpression of mrna levels of irf3 (3.37 folds) and irf7 (1.74 folds) on the day 1 were found in patients experiencing rejection, compared with non-rejected ones, based on initial ischemia/reperfusion (i/r) injuries. but, the mrna levels of irf3 (0.53 folds) and irf7 (0.74 folds) on the day 4 were downregulated in patients with rejected transplantation, compared with non-rejected ones. finally, reducing the expression of irf3 (0.54 fold) on the day 7 and upregulation of irf7 (2.38 fold) on the day 7 were found in rejected liver recipients, compared with non-rejected ones in post-transplant period. conclusions: downregulation of irf3 expression in patients with hbv infection, who experienced rejection episodes in the first week post-liver transplantation indicated that they may be at higher risk for acute rejection; the hypothesis, which should be investigated in further studies.