Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Dec 1.
Published in final edited form as: Hepatology. 2012 Dec;56(6):2094–2105. doi: 10.1002/hep.25951

Figure 1. Greater suppression of HCV-specific effector T cell responses in slow progressors.

Figure 1

Figure 1

PBMC (A) and IHL (B) IFNγ ELISpot assays for HCV-Core and CEF peptides in presence of isotype controls (Iso.) or anti-Treg-associated cytokine Abs (TGFβ and IL-10)(Block) of 6 rapid progressors (>0.1 Metavir units/year) and 13 slow progressors. Each line corresponds to one subject. Spot forming cells (SFC)/106 PBMC over background (unstimulated cells) were expressed for HCV as sum of 3 pools of HCV-Core peptides. There was no difference between media alone and isotype (data not shown). In both compartments, addition of blocking Abs significantly enhanced median HCV-specific T-cell responses in the slow progressor group only. No enhancement of median T-cell responses to non HCV-antigens CEF was observed (Wilcoxon sign rank test). The change from Iso to block in HCV-specific T cell responses is significantly greater in SP vs RP in PBMC (p = 0.047) with a trend to significance in intrahepatic lymphocytes (p = 0.08)(Wilcoxon rank sum test)(not shown).