Figure 5.
Effect of combination therapy on hepatitis C virus (HCV)-specific T cell responses in genotype-3a patients with sustained virological response (SVR) (A) and non-SVR (B). Total magnitude of genotype-3a HCV-specific T cell response measured by IFN-γ ELISpot assay in chronic genotype-3a patients. T cell responses to HCV genotype-3a peptides were measured before treatment, and at multiple timepoints during treatment and post-treatment. Patients achieving SVR are shown on left panel (black symbols) and patients failing to achieve an SVR are shown on right panel (red symbols). Each patient is represented by a different symbol. Threshold of positive HCV-specific responses is represented by dotted line (40 spot-forming units (SFU)/106 peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC)) defined in healthy controls (see Methods). Treatment duration of 24 weeks is shown.