1. Dynamics of immature subsets of dendritic cells during antiviral therapy in HLA-A24–positive chronic hepatitis C patients.
- Author
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Shiina, Masaaki, Kobayashi, Koju, Kobayashi, Tomoo, Kondo, Yasuteru, Ueno, Yoshiyuki, and Shimosegawa, Tooru
- Subjects
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DENDRITIC cells , *HEPATITIS C virus , *PATIENTS , *ANTIVIRAL agents , *THERAPEUTICS , *LYMPHOCYTES - Abstract
The cellular immune response is important in chronic hepatitis C (CHC). To better understand its mechanism, we examined dendritic cells (DCs) and hepatitis C virus (HCV)-specific cytotoxic T cells (CTLs), which are thought to contribute to liver injury and viral clearance. CHC patients received 24 weeks of interferon-α-based antiviral therapy. We analyzed time-sequential frequencies of peripheral DCs, classified as myeloid DCs (mDCs) or plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs), together with peptide major histocompatibility class I tetramers, epitope specific for HCV core 129–137 (t*24/c129) or HCV NS3 1296–1304 (t*24/ns1294), directly ex vivo. The mDC and pDC populations changed in parallel ( P < 0.05), showing a significant transient decrease at weeks 12 and 16 during the therapy, and then recovering. However, neither of the tetramer results showed a direct correlation with the kinetics of peripheral DCs. There is an apparent effect of antiviral therapy or a subsequent reduction of HCV on host immunity, but the effect may not include the induction of CTLs in CHC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2006
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