Liver fibrosis is a common pathological process of chronic hepatic injury, preceded by the chronic inflammation. The homeobox B13 (HOXB13) gene, a member of HOX family, plays diverse biological roles in embryonic development, carcinogenesis, and many inflammatory diseases. However, the expression of HOXB13 in chronic liver diseases including hepatic fibrosis remains to be defined. In present study, 55 patients with hepatic fibrosis, 15 patients of hepatocellular carcinoma, and 17 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Pathological specimens were collected through liver biopsy or surgical resection. The degree of hepatic inflammation (G0–G4) and fibrosis (S0–S4) of hepatic fibrosis was scored based on the modified histology activity index. Intrahepatic HOXB13 expression was analyzed using immunohistochemistry analysis. Compared with healthy subjects, both patients with hepatic fibrosis and patients with hepatocellular carcinoma exhibited significant accumulations of HOXB13+ cells in the liver (p < 0.05). Additionally, the number of HOXB13+ cell was significantly elevated along with the increment of hepatic inflammatory activities, but not fibrosis stages, among these liver fibrosis samples (p < 0.01). Furthermore, the quantity of HOXB13+ cells were also positively correlated with hepatic enzymes, alanine transaminase (r = 0.299, p = 0.041) and aspartate aminotransferase (r = 0.317, p = 0.013) in our cohort of hepatic fibrosis. In conclusion, our study identified a strong hepatic expression of HOXB13 among patients with hepatic fibrosis, which strongly associated with the degree of hepatic inflammatory activity for patients with hepatic fibrosis, suggesting an important role of HOXB13 during the pathogenesis of liver fibrogenesis.

中文翻译：

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HOXB13表达与肝纤维化患者的肝炎活性相关。

肝纤维化是慢性肝损伤的常见病理过程，其之前是慢性炎症。同源盒B13（HOXB13）基因是HOX家族的成员，在胚胎发育，致癌作用和许多炎症性疾病中起着多种生物学作用。然而，HOXB13在包括肝纤维化在内的慢性肝脏疾病中的表达仍有待确定。在本研究中，本研究招募了55例肝纤维化患者，15例肝细胞癌患者和17例健康对照者。通过肝活检或手术切除收集病理标本。根据改良的组织学活性指数对肝纤维化的肝炎程度（G0–G4）和纤维化程度（S0–S4）进行评分。使用免疫组织化学分析分析肝内HOXB13表达。p  ＜0.05）。此外，在这些肝纤维化样本中，HOXB13 +细胞的数目随着肝炎性活动的增加而显着增加，但未出现纤维化阶段（p  <0.01）。此外， 在我们的肝纤维化人群中，HOXB13 +细胞的数量也与肝酶，丙氨酸转氨酶（r = 0.299，p  = 0.041）和天冬氨酸转氨酶（r = 0.317，p = 0.013）呈正相关。总而言之，我们的研究确定了肝纤维化患者中HOXB13的强烈肝表达，这与肝纤维化患者的肝炎活动程度密切相关，表明HOXB13在肝纤维化的发病机理中具有重要作用。