Peripheral Blood Gene Expression Profile Associated with Sustained Virologic Response after Peginterferon Plus Ribavirin Therapy for Chronic Hepatitis-C Genotype 1

ABSTRACT We investigated the relationship between global gene expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) during the first 4 weeks of peginterferon alfa and ribavirin therapy and long-term eradication of hepatitis-C genotype 1 infections in 23 patients. A sustained virologic response (SVR), defined as an undetected serum HCV ribonucleic acid (RNA) at week 72, was the virologic response endpoint. PBMC RNA was prepared at week 0 and week 4 from 23 patients (17 black and 6 white Americans), and hybridized to Affymetrix GeneChip HG-U133 plus 2.0 arrays. Compared to week 0, 269 genes were differentially expressed at week 4 of treatment, including many genes regulated by alpha interferons and associated with host immunity (p