Abstract:Objective To explore the role of the changes of glomerular podocyte number and α3β1 integrin in the pathogenesis of hepatitis B virus associated glomerulonephritis(HBV-GN) and analyze the associations of absolute number and relative density of podocytes with clinical indexes. Methods Biopsy kidney tissue sections of 22 HBV-GN patients from 2011 to 2018 were selected as the HBV-GN group,normal kidney tissue sections removed from the renal tumor of 30 patients underwent surgical resection were as the control group.With Wilms′ tumor suppressor gene (WT1）monoclonal antibody,immunohistochemical staining was performed to target podocytes.Podocyte number per glomerulus(Npodo) and podocyte numerical density(Nv) in a single glomerulus were determined by manual counting and pathological image analysis.The average optical density of glomerular α3β1 integrin was measured by immunohistochemical staining with polyclonal antibody against α3β1. Results Compared with control group,Npodo,Nv and α3β1 integrin expression significantly decreased in HBV-GN group （all P＜0.01）.Npodo and Nv in HBV-GN group were negatively correlated with 24-h urinary protein,respectively(r=-0.488,P=0.000;r=-0.470,P=0.000) and were positively correlated with α3β1 integrin expression level(r=0.314,P=0.023;r=0.299,P=0.031). Conclusions Decreased expression of glomerular α3β1 integrin in HBV-GN patients may lead to the decrease of podocyte adhesion,podocyte abscission,the decrease of podocyte number and resulting in proteinuria in patients.These changes may be related to the pathogenesis and progress of HBV-GN.