Secondary bacterial infections and responses of CD56+ CD3+ and DGAT1 in chronic HCV patients

Introduction: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is one of serious pathogens that infect the liver with epidemic ? 170 millions, while immune-compromised chronic HCV patients suffer from different microbial infections especially bacteria. It was aimed for the identification of common bacterial infections in patients with chronic HCV and other patho-physiological parameters which associated with HCV severity. Materials and Methods: This clinical study was conducted on urine and blood samples of chronic HCV patients and healthy individuals that were collected under optimized conditions. Bacteria were isolated and identified using VETIK2 system. Detection of CD56+ and CD3+ levels was performed by Flowcytometry. Alanine/Aspartate amino-transferase (ALT, AST) levels were detected biochemically, enzyme-linked immune-sorbent assay (ELISA) was used for di-acylglycerol acyltransferase-1 (DGAT1) level detection and HCV PCR was performed for viral load detection. Results: Staphylococcus lentus, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Eschirechia coli were the common bacterial infections; the slight reduction in CD3+and CD56+ levels that was coincident with increasing the levels of Alt, AST and DGAT1 in patients who suffered from high HCV load. Conclusion: HCV patients are immune-compromised and suffer from serious secondary bacterial pathogens which increased the severity of HCV infection.