Large scale biomarker profiling reveals distinct cytokine and chemokine signatures distinguishing different acute and chronic hepatitis virus infections

Infections with hepatotropic viruses can cause acute and chronic hepatitis. The detailed immuno-pathophysiological events leading to inflammation and fibrosis progression are not well understood. In order to investigate the effects of different hepatitis viruses on systemic cytokine and chemokine expression, we performed a large scale multianalyte profiling of samples from 163 individuals with acute hepatitis (12 acute HAV, 5 acute HBV, 21 acute HCV) or chronic viral hepatitis (12 HBV, 14 HBV/HDV coinfection, 51 HCV). In addition, 25 subjects who had recovered from acute hepatitis C and 22 healthy controls were…