The Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has made progress in the field of therapeutic vaccines for chronic hepatitis B

26, hepatology published a research paper by Fu Yang heart of the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences online
. The study reported on the treatment of chronic hepatitis B (chronic hepatitis B, CHB) based on the hepatitis B (HBV) envelope protein preS1 region as a vaccine, providing new ideas for exploring the therapeutic vaccine for chronic hepatitis B.
According to the World Health Organization, there are currently nearly 240 million people living with chronic hepatitis B worldwide, and about 1 million people die each year from liver fibrosis, cirrhosis and liver cancer caused by chronic hepatitis B infections. In China, hepatitis B surface antigen carrying rate accounts for about 7.18% of the total population, chronic hepatitis B is one of the major diseases threatening the health of our people. Although the rate of new infections of HBV has decreased significantly since the widespread use of the HBV preventive vaccine, there is still a lack of effective treatment strategies for patients with hepatitis B who have established chronic infections.
HBV can only infect humans and higher primates, and the lack of animal models limits the study of HBV pathogenicity and its treatment strategies. In the study, Fu Yang heart team used AAV-HBV1.3 virus to build a stable HBV-resistant mouse model with the same virological and immunological esophology as CHB patients. The authors first systematically studied the immunogenicity and immune response of the hepatitis B envelope protein preS1 region, and found that the envelope protein preS1 region of hepatitis B virus and HBsAg had different tolerance states. HBsAg is the main cause of induced immune tolerance in chronic hepatitis B, as a vaccine is not able to cause an immune response in the HBV tolerance model, while the preS1 region as a vaccine can cause a strong CD4-T cell immune response in the HBV tolerance model, its induced antibodies are able to remove preS1 antigens and HBV virus in the blood. At the same time, in-body experiments have shown that antibodies produced in the serum are effective in blocking HBV from infecting liver cells. In the course of the study, the authors found that the preS1 vaccine immunity can partially restore the antibody immune response of HBsAg, the mechanism of which needs further study. The combined preS1 vaccine and the HBsAg vaccine eventually induce serological transformation of HBsAg-HBsAb in HBV-resistant mice, while inducing a certain immune response in the liver, thereby reducing hepatitis B virus infection in the liver. This study provides a new target for the study of therapeutic hepatitis B vaccine.
Yingjie, assistant researcher of Fu Yang heart research group, is the first author of the thesis. The study, conducted under the guidance of Fu Yang heart and associate researcher Peng Hua, was carried out by researchers from the Institute of Chinese Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the 302 Hospital of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. The HBV in-body infection experiment was helped by Li Wenhui, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Life Sciences. The work has been supported by the 12th Five-Year Special Project of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the pilot project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. (Source: Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences