BACKGROUND:Chemokines have strong chemoattractant effects and are involved in a variety of immune and inlfammatory reactions, such as attracting activated T lymphocytes, neutrophils, monocytes and natural killer cells via the pathway of G protein-coupled receptors to sites of inlfammatory injury and contribute to wound repair. This investigation was designed to assess the levels of chemokine interferon-γ inducible protein-10 (IP-10) and IP-10 mRNA, and the relationship between IP-10 mRNA and HBV-DNA and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in patients with chronic hepatitis B. METHODS:The levels of IP-10 mRNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were kinetically detected by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The rate of chemokine/GAPDH was regarded as the extreme level of chemokine. The level of IP-10 in serum was measured by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and the expression of IP-10 in hepatic biopsy tissue was detected by streptavidin-peroxidase (SP) immunohistochemistry. RESULTS:The level of IP-10 mRNA in the PBMCs of patients was 0.7387±0.0768 (lg cDNA/lg GAPDH); it was signiifcantly higher in patients with chronic hepatitis B than that in normal controls (P