The genotype C could play a key role in hepatitis B virus associated nephritis among the Northwest Chinese children

BackgroundHepatitis B virus-associated glomerulonephritis (HBV-GN) is a kind of immune complex-induced glomerulonephritis. The present study was designed to determine whether Hepatitis B virus (HBV) genotype is associated with glomerulonephritis in north-west Chinese children.MethodsA total of 296 HBV-infected patients were enrolled in this study. The serum of patients was subjected to DNA extraction and the HBV genotypes were determined by PCR.ResultsThe results showed that genotype C (49%) was predominant within the subjects, compared to HBV/B (38.5%), B/C recombinant (7.4%) and none B/C (5.1%). The serum tests showed that the changes of Complement 3 (C3) and alanine amino transferase (ALT) levels in the genotype C patients were significantly greater than those in the genotype B patients. The frequency of genotype C in HBV-GN patients was higher than that in non HBV-GN patients (χ2 value = 30.239, P < 0.001). But, it was not associated with renal dysfunction. Furthermore, The genotype C was associated with high HBV-DNA load (82.9% vs 17.1%, P < 0.001), which is seen more frequently in the HBV-GN children (86.3% vs 13.3%, P = 0.004).ConclusionsThe genotype C may play a role in HBV-GN children, via favoring HBV replication.