Fig. 1.

HCV core protein-induced expression of CD40L on CD4 lymphocytes from control and ribavirin-treated patients: expression of CD40L was determined by FACS after 6 h incubation of PBMC with 1 µg/ml HCV core antigen. 50 000 events gated on viable CD4-positive lymphocytes were analysed in each sample. The percentage of CD40L-positive cells in samples incubated without core protein were consistently less than 0·02.