Skip to main content
. 2021 Oct 26;71(11):2300–2312. doi: 10.1136/gutjnl-2021-324646

Figure 5.

Figure 5

Impact of PD-L1 blockade on HBV-specific T cell responses in patients with CHB. HBV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses following 10-day in vitro stimulation with HBV overlapping peptide (OLP) pools with or without the addition of anti-PD-L1 antibody. (A) IFN-γ expression by HBV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells of patients with different HBsAg level. Open circles mark three patients with HBsAg of 1000–10 000 IU/mL with the highest T cell response who showed all HBcrAg levels of <3 Log U/mL. (B) Correlation analyses of HBsAg residuals with difference or log2 fold change of HBV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses after expansion in presence of anti-PD-L1. (C) IFN-γ expression by HBV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells of patients with different levels of HBcrAg. Total-specific T cell response: sum of all 14 OLP pools. Statistical significance was tested by Wilcoxon test for non-parametric data and by paired t-test for parametric data (A, C). *p<0.05; **p<0.01; ***p<0.001. CHB, chronic hepatitis B; HBcrAg, hepatitis B core-related antigen; HBsAg, hepatitis B surface antigen; IFN, interferon; PD-L1, programmed cell death ligand 1.