{"doi":"10.1093/infdis/jiae280","title":"B-Cell Activation Gene Signature in Blood and Liver of Hepatitis B e Antigen–Positive Patients With Immune Active Chronic Hepatitis B","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Studies on chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection have shown immune dysfunction involving multiple cell types, including T cells. B cells have been evaluated more recently, but in contrast to T cells, more pronounced activation of circulating B cells has been reported. To gain more insight into the activation status of B cells, we investigated gene profiles of B cells in the blood and liver of patients with chronic HBV. METHODS: RNA-sequencing and flow cytometric analysis was performed on peripheral blood B cells of patients with immune active chronic HBV, comparing them with samples from healthy controls. In addition, gene expression profiles of B cells in the liver were analyzed by bulk and single-cell RNA-seq. RESULTS: Our data show a distinctive B-cell activation gene signature in the blood of patients with immune active chronic HBV, characterized by a significant upregulation of immune-related genes. This peripheral activation profile was also observed in B cells from the liver by single-cell RNA-seq, with naive and memory B-cell subsets being the primary carriers of the signature. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that B-cell gene profiles reflect responsiveness to HBV infection; these findings are relevant for clinical studies evaluating immunomodulatory treatment strategies for HBV.","journal":"The Journal of Infectious Diseases","year":2024,"id":457773,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.945,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1031004,"name":"Boris J. B. Beudeker","orcid":"0000-0003-3830-6366","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":438566,"name":"Zwier M. A. Groothuismink","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":449587,"name":"Robert J. de Knegt","orcid":"0000-0003-0934-6975","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":270866,"name":"Raymond T. Chung","orcid":"0000-0001-7587-718X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":540798,"name":"Jeroen Aerssens","orcid":"0000-0002-9254-4800","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":541379,"name":"Jacques Bollekens","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":270563,"name":"Harry L.A. Janssen","orcid":"0000-0003-2398-8392","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":806779,"name":"Adam J. Gehring","orcid":"0000-0003-1150-5840","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":331565,"name":"Georg M. Lauer","orcid":"0000-0002-9792-4271","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1413,"name":"Alex K. Shalek","orcid":"0000-0001-5670-8778","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1031003,"name":"Harmen J.G. van de Werken","orcid":"0000-0002-9794-1477","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437547,"name":"André Boonstra","orcid":"0000-0001-8607-1616","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":570706,"name":"Zgjim Osmani","orcid":"0000-0001-5210-8943","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":22,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:03:41.744499Z","pmid":"38847286","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}