Interferon-gamma mRNA expression from peripheral blood mononuclear cells in hepatitis C virus infection: relation to viremia and combined peginterferon ribavirin response

It would be most helpful to identify serological markers associated with poor treatment outcome at baseline or in the early phase of therapy in order to spare unnecessary side effects of an expensive antiviral therapy (ribavirin and peginterferon). We hypothesized that pretreatment gamma-interferon gene expression level in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and its protein could be used to predict treatment outcome (responders and nonresponders) in Egyptian HCV patients. This study involved 29 HCV subjects; they were classified after the 24 weeks of a treatment regimen (ribavirin and peginterferon) into two groups (16 patients with nondetectable HCV classified as responders and 13 HCV patients who had detectable HCV classified as nonresponders). Baseline interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) gene expression and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) as a housekeeping gene were measured by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) methods using Syber Green method. Serum interferon-gamma level was determined by an ELISA (Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay). It is shown that 7/13 (54%) of nonresponders and 2/16 (13%) of responders showed elevated blood IFN-gamma mRNA levels prior to the therapy (p?p?