The level of serum duplex-linear DNA (dlDNA) increases markedly with
liver disease progression and development of hepatocellular carcinoma
(HCC) in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection,
suggests research published in Gut.
Viral dlDNA has been
shown to be the primary precursor of HBV DNA integration into host
chromosomes, a process that can have oncogenic consequences, explain the
researchers, adding that their main result “supports the notion that
dlDNA may play a role in HCC oncogenesis and suggests that therapeutic
reduction of dlDNA may reduce the risk of HCC development.”
Using a
peptide nucleic acid-mediated quantitative real-time polymerase chain
reaction clamping assay developed for the purpose of detecting dlDNA,
the proportion of serum dlDNA relative to total HBV DNA was found to be a
median of 7.24% in the 143 chronic HBV patients.
Read more...Labels: markers of disease progression, serum duplex-linear DNA (dlDNA)