OBJECTIVE: To determine the expression profile of microRNA (miRNA) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and immune factors in pregnant women with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. METHODS: A total of 182 pregnant women infected with HBV were randomly selected, with 40 healthy pregnant women and 35 non-pregnant women as controls. High-throughput sequencing was used to detect RNA in the PBMC of all subjects. Indirect ELISA method was used to determine the changes of cytokines in peripheral blood samples. RESULTS: Compared with the control group, 18 differentially expressed miRNA were identified in those with HBV infection (P< 0.01). Among these, miR-3607-3p, miR-20a, miR-1296, miR-153-1 and miR-X4 may directly regulate the transcriptional level of target genes including IL-10, IL-18, IL-16, MCP-1, NUP50 and CCR1. Meanwhile, peripheral blood cytokines IL-10, IL-18, IL-16 and MCP-1 were significantly increased in those with HBV infection (P<0.01), with the expression level of IL-16 and MCP-1 being strongly correlated with the viral load. CONCLUSION: The expression profiles of miRNA in PBMC and cytokines in peripheral blood can change significantly during pregnancy, both may be involved in the immune response to HBV infection.
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Wang et al. (2019) studied this question.