Enhanced expression of alpha1-acid glycoprotein and fucosylation in hepatitis B patients provides an insight into pathogenesis.

Altered glycosylation and concentration of alpha1-acid glycoprotein has been known to be related to the pathogenesis of the hepatic diseases. The present study investigated enhanced fucosylation of AGP in the sera of chronic hepatitis B (HBV-CH) and hepatitis B cirrhosis (HBV-LC) patients by high performance anion exchange chromatography and by ELISA using fucose binding Aleuria aurantia lectin. The concentration of AGP determined by ELISA using monoclonal anti-human AGP (mAb-AGP) showed high level of AGP in HBV-CH and HBV-LC patients. This was further judged by association constant (K (A)) measured by surface plasmon resonance analysis. There was no apparent linkage variation of sialic acid among different patient groups when tested with two sialic acid binding lectins viz., Maackia amurensis agglutinin (MAA, NeuAc alpha2-3-) and Sambucus nigra agglutinin (SNA, NeuAc alpha2-6-) respectively. There was no change of oligosaccharide branching in HBV-CH in comparison to controls whereas a slight change was observed in HBV-LC using ConA. The above results suggest that the changes in concentration of AGP and fucosylation have a prognostic value of hepatitis diseases and it could be possible to use AGP as diagnostic marker besides clinical examination and routine laboratory investigation.