Human non-A, non-B hepatitis: ultrastructural alterations in hepatocytes.

Ultrastructural investigation of liver biopsies from two patients with non-A, non-B hepatitis revealed cytoplasmic and nuclear alterations in the hepatocytes. The lesions in both patients, one with acute and one with chronic hepatitis, were similar and distinct from those previously described in other forms of hepatitis. These findings are compared with the reported findings in chimpanzee liver after inoculation with non-A, non-B infective material. The intranuclear findings are similar to the aggregations of 20-27 nm particles described in some infected chimpanzees, and the cytoplasmic alterations seem to be similar to the cytoplasmic structures and tubular arrangements reported in other inoculated chimpanzees. A striking finding of this study is the presence of both alterations together in the same biopsy in two different patients, suggesting that they represent a different stage of viral infection or different parts of the viral agent. It still remains to be proved that the ultrastructural particles indeed contain antigen(s) of the non-A, non-B hepatitis virus. The nuclear and cytoplasmic alterations are, however, characteristic for non-A, non-B hepatitis and are useful as ultrastructural hallmarks of this form of hepatitis.