Author(s)

Weizhen Weng¹, Yiming Shi², Xiaohua Peng³, Jing Xiong¹, Huijuan Cao¹, Bingliang Lin^1*

¹Department of Infectious Diseases, the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
²Department of Intensive Care Unit, the Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
³Department of Gastroenterology, the Seventh Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Shenzhen, China.

Acute-on-chronic liver failure (Acute-on-chronic liver failure, ACLF) is acute liver function decompensation on the basis of chronic liver disease. The progression of ACLF develops from advanced phase, plateau phase to remission phase. The pathophysiological basis of ACLF in different phases is various. In advanced phase, immune imbalance and systemic inflammatory reaction plays key roles. In this study, we try to assess the association between expression of NK cells and its receptors and prognosis of patients with ACLF in advanced phase. A total of 35 inpatients with HBV acute-on-chronic liver failure in advanced phase were recruited. They were divided into case group (n = 18) and control group (n = 17) according to whether the patients was dead in the 12 weeks. PBMC were detected for the frequency and expression of NK cell receptors by flow cytometric analysis. Our results demonstrated that patients who died had lower expression of NK cells and inhibitory receptor KIR3DL1, higher levels of FASL. During 12-week follow-up in those case alive, we found that NK cells increased, while expression of FASL decreased. High short-term mortality of ALCF was associated with NK cell, especially related to KIR3DL1 and FASL (P_NK = 0.036, P_KIR3DL1 = 0.0265, P_FasL = 0.0008).

HBV, ACLF, NK Cell, Flow Cytometry

Weng, W. , Shi, Y. , Peng, X. , Xiong, J. , Cao, H. and Lin, B. (2017) The Association between Expression of NK Cells and Prognosis of Patients with HBV Acute-on-Chronic Liver Failure in Advanced Phase. Advances in Infectious Diseases, 7, 118-125. doi: 10.4236/aid.2017.74012.