Overlapping Transcriptomic Features between Autoimmune Liver Disease and Chronic Hepatitis B Highlight Inflammatory Signatures as Focal Points of Liver Disease Progression and HCC-associated Mortality

Abstract Aims: Potential overlapping biomarkers for autoimmune liver disease (AILD) and chronic hepatitis B (CHB) were searched from transcriptomic database. Settings and Design: Two different publicly available transcriptomic datasets for autoimmune liver disease (GSE159676) and chronic hepatitis B (GSE65359) from NCBI GEO datasets were analysed for biomarker identification. Methods and Material: In silico platforms like iDEP.92, STRING, Cytoscape, Enrichr and KM-plotter were used, along with i n vitro validation involving HCC cell line and plasmids expressing HBV genome and its counterparts. Statistical analysis used: Two-tailed unpaired Student's t-test and other statistical analyses were performed with GraphPad Prism software. Results: A positive transcriptomic correlation was found between AILD and clearance phase of CHB. CXCL8 was identified as a potent and reliable biomarker that might be further used for therapeutic strategy against AILD and CHB.