Presence of Anti-Microbial Antibodies in Liver Cirrhosis – A Tell-Tale Sign of Compromised Immunity?

Bacterial translocation plays important role in the complications of liver cirrhosis. Antibody formation against various microbial antigens is common in Crohn's disease and considered to be caused by sustained exposure to gut microflora constituents. We hypothesized that anti-microbial antibodies are present in patients with liver cirrhosis and may be associated with the development of bacterial infections.<0.001, OR:2.02) by Cox-regression analysis.The present study suggests that systemic reactivity to microbial components reflects compromised mucosal immunity in patients with liver cirrhosis, further supporting the possible role of bacterial translocation in the formation of anti-microbial antibodies

Common NOD2/CARD15 variants are not associated with susceptibility or the clinicopathologic characteristics of sporadic colorectal cancer in Hungarian patients

BACKGROUND: Epidemiological observations suggest that cancer arises from chronically inflamed tissues. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a typical example as patients with longstanding IBD are at an increased risk for developing colorectal cancer (CRC) and mutations of the NOD2/CARD15 gene increase the risk for Crohn's disease (CD). Recently, NOD2/CARD15 has been associated with a risk for CRC in some studies, which stemmed from ethnically diverse populations. Our aim was to identify common NOD2/CARD15 mutations in Hungarian patients with sporadic CRC. METHODS: A total of 194 sporadic CRC patients (m/f: 108/86, age at diagnosis of CRC: 63.2 ± 9.1 years old) and 200 healthy subjects were included. DNA was screened for SNP8, SNP12 and SNP13 NOD2/CARD15 mutations by denaturing-HPLC and confirmed by direct sequencing. RESULTS: NOD2/CARD15 mutations were found in 28 patients (14.4%) and in 23 controls (11.5%, p = NS). Allele frequencies for SNP8/R702W (1.8% vs. 1.5%) SNP12/G908R (1.8% vs. 1.8%) and SNP13/3020insC (3.6% vs. 2.5%) were also not statistically different between patients and controls. The clinicopathologic characteristics of CRC patients with or without NOD2/CARD15 mutations were not significantly different. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that common NOD2/CARD15 mutations alone do not contribute to CRC risk in the Hungarian population

Anti-microbial serological markers in patients with chronic liver diseases and healthy controls.

<p>AIH = autoimmune hepatitis, HCV = viral hepatitis C, PBC = primary biliary cirrhosis, PSC = primary sclerosing cholangitis.</p><p>*<i>p</i><0.001 between liver cirrhosis and chronic HCV, autoimmune liver diseases, healthy controls.</p>#<p><i>p</i><0.001 between chronic HCV patients and autoimmune liver diseases, healthy controls.</p>&<p><i>p</i> = 0.04 between PSC and healthy controls.</p>φ<p><i>p</i><0.001 between PSC and chronic HCV.</p>⊥<p><i>p</i><0.01 between PSC and chronic HCV.</p><p>by using Fisher's exact test or χ²-test with Yates correction if appropriate.</p

Summary of Cox model: factors affecting time to first severe bacterial infection.

<p><i>p</i> value: level of significance; 95% CI: 95% confidence interval.</p