bromochloroacetic-acid and Hepatitis--Viral--Human

Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Child; Chronic Disease; Cytosine; Guanine; Hepatitis, Autoimmune; Hepatitis, Viral, Human; Histidine; Humans; Keratin-8; Keratins; Liver Cirrhosis; Liver Diseases; Middle Aged; Mutation, Missense; Tyrosine

There are many molecular tumor markers for diagnosing and monitoring cancer patients. Especially, quantitative assay for serum levels of tumor markers; such as AFP, CEA, PSA, hCG, CA 19-9 and CA 125, are frequently used in daily practice because of their relative specificities and usefulness to the common cancers. Though not suitable for early diagnosis, but they are used in monitoring patients with advanced caner, especially after treatments. Two of them, AFP and PSA, are also used in the screening and monitoring of high-risk groups, namely patients with chronic viral hepatitis and old male, who are the high risk for hepatoma and proste cancer respectively. Problems in using serum markers are; relatively low specificity and low sensitivity to cancer, confusing naming for similar markers that recognize almost the same molecule of cancer. Users must understand that CA 19-9, CA 50, KM-O 1 and SPAN-1 are in the same sialylated Lewis A group, and CA 125, CA 130 and CA 602; in the mucin antigen group, and STN, CA 54/61 and CA 72-4; in the sialyl Tn antigen group. Combination of two or more markers may inform us the biological characteristics of the cancer. For example, a germ-cell tumors may produce hCG and placental marker. That is of the choriocarcinoma type. Those with hCG and fetal antigens are the ordinal type of germ cell tumors, and those with AFP, CEA and cytokeratin are teratoma, and those with LDH and ALP only but negative for hCG and AFP must be seminoma. For the bronchial and alveolar carcinomas, CEA, SCC, NSE and cytokeratin 19 fragments are useful. Combination may be difficult for beginners but once understood, it will be an art in clinical oncology.

Topics: alpha-Fetoproteins; Antigens, Neoplasm; Biomarkers; Biomarkers, Tumor; Carcinoembryonic Antigen; Diagnosis, Differential; Female; Hepatitis, Viral, Human; Humans; Keratin-19; Keratins; Lewis X Antigen; Male; Neoplasms; Prostate-Specific Antigen; Prostatic Neoplasms; Protein Precursors; Prothrombin

Extracellular matrix (ECM) may affect the function and phenotype of hepatocytes. Phenotypic changes of hepatocytes in diseased liver were investigated with reference to ECM composition.. Immunohistochemistry was performed on biopsied liver samples from chronic viral hepatitis (CVH), primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) and normal patients, using monoclonal antibodies for laminin, type IV collagen, cytokeratin 19 (CK19) and epithelial glycoprotein (EGP), a protein homologous to nidogen.. In normal controls, both EGP and CK 19 were expressed exclusively on biliary epithelia. Laminin and type IV collagen were expressed around portal bile ducts and blood vessels. Although type IV collagen was expressed in Disse's space, laminin was scarcely expressed. In all pathological livers, both EGP and CK 19 were expressed in proliferated bile ductules. In CVH with piecemeal necrosis, EGP was expressed on periportal hepatocytes, while CK19 expression was limited to a few hepatocytes. Laminin was expressed in Disse's space of periportal sinusoids, where EGP was expressed on hepatocytes. EGP expression on hepatocytes and laminin deposition in Disse's space were rare in PBC and PSC liver.. These results suggest that hepatocytes transform into a phenotype similar to biliary epithelia and, laminin deposition in Disse's space (capillarization of sinusoids) may play a role in this phenotypic change.

Topics: Cholangitis, Sclerosing; Collagen; Extracellular Matrix; Hepatitis, Chronic; Hepatitis, Viral, Human; Humans; Immunohistochemistry; Keratins; Liver; Liver Cirrhosis, Biliary; Liver Diseases; Membrane Glycoproteins; Phenotype

The patterns of cytokeratin as determined by murine monoclonal antikeratin antibody lu-5 (mAb lu-5) were quantitated in paraffin-embedded liver tissue from normal and diseased subjects. In tissue from healthy medical students, mAb lu-5 was found to decorate 2-4 periportal and 2-3 perivenular cell layers. Alcoholic liver disease was accompanied by a marked increase in intensity of mAb lu-5 antigen expression in zone I and III hepatocytes. Moreover, additional liver cells of both zones were progressively recruited, so that in advanced lesions all three lobular zones became positive. In mechanical as well as in drug-induced cholestasis, a similar increase of mAb lu-5 antigen expression was already observed in earlier stages of disease, including an earlier recruitment of zone II hepatocytes. In both alcoholic and cholestatic biopsies the intensity and extent of mAb lu-5 epitope expression increased with the duration and severity of disease. In primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) and seemingly also in primary sclerosing cholangitis the increase and extent was more marked in zone I, the zone of assumed cholate accumulation. Changes in zone III, the territory of histologic cholestasis (bilirubinostasis), became evident only in late stages of PBC. Mallory bodies of alcoholic and cholestatic liver disease showed an identical mAB lu-5 antigen expression, thus giving rise to four different staining patterns. Changes of cytokeratin expression are similar in alcoholic and cholestatic liver diseases. In chronic viral hepatitis, however, cytokeratin alterations are discrete and restricted to precirrhotic/cirrhotic stages.

Topics: Antibodies, Monoclonal; Biopsy; Cholestasis; Chronic Disease; Epithelium; Hepatitis, Viral, Human; Humans; Keratins; Liver Diseases, Alcoholic; Paraffin Embedding; Reproducibility of Results; Retrospective Studies

The proliferative activity and ultrastructural characteristics of proliferating biliary epithelial cells were analysed immunohistocytochemically in 39 biopsied liver specimens from patients with acute viral hepatitis, chronic hepatitis and liver cirrhosis using a monoclonal antibody against DNA polymerase alpha (DNA-PA). In acute viral hepatitis with perivenular confluent necrosis, proliferation of typical bile ducts was found frequently in portal areas. In chronic aggressive hepatitis and cirrhosis, ductular proliferation of both typical and atypical forms was found in enlarged portal and periportal areas and in confluent necrotic areas. The number of proliferating biliary epithelial cells that stained positive for DNA-PA was small. There were very few positively stained cells in atypical bile ducts in confluent necrotic areas of cirrhosis. Atypical bile ducts seen in chronic aggressive hepatitis, cirrhosis and acute hepatitis with confluent necrosis were positively stained for both cytokeratins 8 and 19. In cirrhosis, the number of stained biliary epithelial cells in typical bile ducts was larger than the number of such cells in atypical bile ducts (P < 0.01). By electron microscopy, the cells positively stained for DNA-PA were mostly so-called clear cells with irregular nuclei containing coarse nucleoplasm, and a few small cells with scanty cytoplasm and few organelles.

Topics: Adult; Aged; Antibodies, Monoclonal; Bile Ducts; Biopsy; Cell Division; Chronic Disease; Cytoplasm; DNA Polymerase II; Epithelium; Female; Hepatitis; Hepatitis, Viral, Human; Humans; Immunohistochemistry; Keratins; Liver; Liver Cirrhosis; Liver Diseases; Male; Microscopy, Electron; Middle Aged; Organelles

Antibodies against thymus epithelial cells (anti-TEC) and the basal cell layer (BCLA) of squamous epithelia have been described in association with HDV-related chronic liver disease (CLD). Data are lacking on their presence during nAnB virus infection. Sera from 51 patients with nAnB post-transfusion hepatitis, including acute and chronic cases diagnosed during a prospective study on candidates for cardiac surgery, and 167 with various forms of CLD were tested for the presence of anti-TEC and BCLA using indirect immunofluorescence on human thymus and rat forestomach sections. Both antibodies mainly occurred in nAnB, HDV and cryptogenic CLD (anti-TEC: 51%, 47% and 42%; BCLA: 29%, 38% and 31%, respectively). The prevalence of anti-TEC in nAnB CLD turned out to be higher than that recorded in alcoholic, HBV-related, autoimmune, liver and kidney microsomal antibody positive CLD and primary biliary cirrhosis (p ranging from less than 0.03 to less than 0.0004). Two monoclonal antibodies (Mabs) to cytokeratins gave a pattern superimposable on that of spontaneous anti-TEC (both Mabs) and BCLA (only one). Antibodies against epithelial constituents, presumably targeting cytokeratin-associated antigens, occur not only in HDV CLD, as previously reported, but also in nAnB CLD, where they might represent a diagnostic aid, due to the unavailability of reliable serological markers of nAnB infection. The close similarity of anti-TEC and BCLA status between nAnB and cryptogenic CLD suggests a nAnB etiology of at least a proportion of chronic liver patients at present scored as cryptogenic.

Topics: Acute Disease; Antibodies, Monoclonal; Antibody Specificity; Autoantibodies; Child; Epithelium; Fluorescent Antibody Technique; Hepatitis C; Hepatitis, Chronic; Hepatitis, Viral, Human; Humans; Keratins; Liver Diseases; Prevalence; Prospective Studies; Thymus Gland; Transfusion Reaction