Significance of serum IgA in patients with acute hepatitis E virus infection

• Published in: World journal of gastroenterology : WJG 2006-06, Vol.12 (24), p.3919-3923
• Main Authors: Tian, De-Ying, Chen, Yan, Xia, Ning-Shao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acute Disease; Adult; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; Female; Hepatitis Antibodies - blood; Hepatitis E - blood; Hepatitis E - diagnosis; Hepatitis E - immunology; Hepatitis E virus - genetics; Hepatitis E virus - immunology; Humans; Immunoglobulin A - blood; Immunoglobulin A - immunology; Immunoglobulin G - blood; Immunoglobulin G - immunology; Immunoglobulin M - blood; Immunoglobulin M - immunology; Male; Middle Aged; Rapid Communication; RNA, Viral - analysis; 戊型病毒肝炎; 病毒感染; 血清IgA
• ISSN: 1007-9327; 2219-2840
• DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v12.i24.3919

AIM： To study the significance of serum anti-hepatitis E virus （HEV） IgA in patients with hepatitis E. METHODS： A new method was established to assay anti-HEY IgA, which could be detected in the middle phase of the infection. We compared anti-HEV IgA assay with anti-HEV IgM and anti-HEV IgG assay in sera from 60 patients with positive HEV-RNA. RESULTS： The 60 patients with positive HEV-RNA had both anti-HEV IgA and anti-HEV IgM and 410 patients with negative HEV-RNA were used as control. Periodic serum samples obtained from 60 patients with hepatitis E were tested for HEV RNA, anti-HEV IgM, anti-HEV IgA and anti-HEV IgG. Their HEV-RNA was detectable in the serum until 20 ±11 d. We used anti-HEV IgM and anti-HEV IgA assay to detect HEV infection and positive results were found in 90 ± 15 d and 120 ±23 d respectively, the positive rate of anti-HEV IgA was higher than that of anti-HEV IgM and HEV-RNA （P 〈0.05）. CONCLUSION： The duration of anti-HEV IgA in serum is longer than that of anti-HEV IgM, and anti-HEV IgA assay is a good method to detect HEV infection.