Study on Gut Microbiota in Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infected Patients

Hepatitis B Virus(HBV) infection is a common infectious disease affecting up to 2 billion people worldwide. Around 650 thousand people died of liver failure, cirrhosis and primary liver cancer caused by chronic hepatitis B every year. Age is the main factor affecting the chronicity of hepatitis B, while 90% and 25% to 30% of hepatitis b virus(HBV) infection in perinatal and infant period will develop into chronic infection respectively. Whereas the proportion in patients above 5 years old is only 5% to 10%. Intestinal microbiota plays an important role in maintaining nomal physiological function of the intestine and the immune function of the body. It has been found that the disorder of intestinal microbiota is associated with numerous intestinal and parenteral diseases. Recently, the relationship between immune response and intestinal microbiota has been claimed. In a previous study using IMT to treat HBeAg positive chronic hepatits B patients combined with antiviral theraopy, 80% of them has reached HBeAg clearance. Increasing evidence suggests that the gut microbiota has evolved as a new important player in the pathogenesis of hepatitis B virus-induced chronic liver disease. However, the composition and structure alteration of the gut microbiota associated with the stage and progression of HBV infection remains unknown. Hence, we proposed a trial to detected gut microbiota of chronic HBV infected patients high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing to elucidate the microbial influence which contribute to the microbial shift of patient in different stage.