Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2015 May;12(3):258-63.
doi: 10.1038/cmi.2014.79. Epub 2014 Sep 1.

The immune tolerant phase of chronic HBV infection: new perspectives on an old concept

Antonio Bertoletti  1 , Patrick T Kennedy  2
Affiliations
Review

The immune tolerant phase of chronic HBV infection: new perspectives on an old concept

Antonio Bertoletti et al. Cell Mol Immunol. 2015 May.

Abstract

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection progresses through distinct disease phases that are strongly associated with patient age. The so-called immune tolerant (IT) phase represents the classical early phase of infection; it is associated with high levels of HBV replication and lack of clinical signs of liver Inflammation. Whether this phase of HBV infection is also associated with immunological features of "tolerance' has recently been challenged. Here, we review the data that dispute this concept of immune tolerance and then propose an alternative interpretation of the immunopathological events that take place during this early phase of CHB infection.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Conventional (a) and proposed new representations (b) of the immunological events occurring during the natural history of HBV infection. HBV, hepatitis B virus.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. 1Lavanchy D. Hepatitis B virus epidemiology, disease burden, treatment, and current and emerging prevention and control measures. J Viral Hepatitis 2004; 11: 97–107. - PubMed
    1. 2Yim HJ, Lok AS. Natural history of chronic hepatitis B virus infection: what we knew in 1981 and what we know in 2005. Hepatology 2006; 43: S173–S181. - PubMed
    1. 3Milich DR, Jones JE, Hughes JL, Price J, Raney AK, McLachlan A et al. Is a function of the secreted hepatitis B e antigen to induce immunologic tolerance in utero? Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1990; 87: 6599–6603. - PMC - PubMed
    1. 4D'Antiga L, Aw M, Atkins M, Moorat A, Vergani D, Mieli-Vergani G. Combined lamivudine/interferon-α treatment in ‘immunotolerant' children perinatally infected with hepatitis B: a pilot study. J Pediatr 2006; 148: 228–233.e1. - PubMed
    1. 5Carey I, D'Antiga L, Bansal S, Longhi MS, Ma Y, Mesa IR et al. Immune and viral profile from tolerance to hepatitis B surface antigen clearance: a longitudinal study of vertically hepatitis B virus-infected children on combined therapy. J Virol 2011; 85: 2416–2428. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources