Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) Infection in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells of HBV Mono-infected and HBV/Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type-1 Co-infected Patients

Abstract

It is unknown whether HIV-1 co-infection impacts HBV lymphotropism. We hypothesize that concomitant HIV-1 infection will affect HBV detection in PBMC subsets. We compared HBV genome detection in whole PBMC and CD4+ T, CD8+ T, CD14+ monocyte, CD19+ B and CD56+ NK cell subsets isolated from 14 HBV mono-infected (4/14 with a second sample collected after starting antivirals) and 6 HBV/HIV-1 co-infected patients on antivirals using nested PCR/nucleic hybridization and/or quantitative PCR assays. HBV DNA was detected in most target PBMC subsets regardless of HIV-1 co-infection and antiviral treatment; with the exception of the CD4+ T cell subset from HBV/HIV-1 + patients. All whole PBMC analyzed (13/13 HBV treatment naïve mono-infected, 4/4 follow-up cases on antivirals, and 3/3 HBV/HIV-1 co-infected) were HBV genome positive. The data suggests that HBV infection in CD4+ T cells is affected by concomitant HIV-1 infection.