A case of latent primary biliary cirrhosis.

A 53-year-old housewife was the donor when living-related donor liver transplantation (LRLT) was performed in her younger sister (49-year-old) with terminal primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC). The donor's liver histology was diagnostic and compatible with PBC, although she was negative for antimitochondrial antibody (AMA: a specific marker of PBC) by immunofluorescence and had normal liver function tests as well as no symptoms of liver disease. In this patient with latent PBC, AMA was eventually detected by immunoblotting, although it was not detected by ELISA.

Identification of rare polymerase variants of hepatitis B virus using a two-stage PCR with peptide nucleic acid clamping.

Emergence of lamivudine-resistant variants, with amino acid substitutions in the Tyr-Met-Asp-Asp (YMDD) motif of hepatitis B virus (HBV) reverse transcriptase, is a serious problem in antiviral therapy. Presence of YMDD motif variants in patients who had never been treated with lamivudine has been reported recently. However, no analysis of nucleotide and amino acid sequences of these variants has been performed.

Impact of aging on the development of hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with hepatitis C virus infection in Japan.

Background: It is difficult to study the long-term outcome of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection because chronic infection is often asymptomatic and duration of the disease is prolonged. The clinical outcome of HCV infection remains unclear in patients of advanced age.

Methods: Among 575 patients consecutively diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) from 1988 to 1999 at Hiroshima University, we examined 430 with HCV.

Immune-mediated cholangiohepatitis in neonatally thymectomized mice: the role of T cells and analysis of T-cell receptor Vbeta usage.

We have previously reported the induction of immune-mediated cholangiohepatitis following injection of a hybrid recombinant proteins containing the E2 of the pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDC-E2) and the branched-chain keto-acid dehydrogenase (BCOADC-E2) to neonatally thymectomized (Tx) A/J mice. Further, we demonstrated that intrahepatic infiltrating mononuclear cells could transfer pathology to other Tx mice. To further our observations, we examined intrahepatic infiltrating mononuclear cells by flow cytometry and used cell transfer experiments to identify the phenotype involved.

Mammalian Polycomb group genes are categorized as a new type of early response gene induced by B-cell receptor cross-linking.

Polycomb group (PcG) genes were initially described in Drosophila melanogaster as regulators of the homeobox gene. Four mammalian homologues, mel-18, bmi-1, M33 and rae-28, are analyzed in this study. They not only regulate mammalian homeotic genes by analogy with their Drosophila counterparts, but also have some influence on the growth and differentiation of B lymphocytes.