Mechanism of T cell hyporesponsiveness to HBcAg is associated with regulatory T cells in chronic hepatitis B

Figure 6 Depletion of CD4⁺CD25⁺ T cells from PBMCs increases HBcAg-specific production of IFN-γ in patients with hepatitis B. Using the differential expression of CD4 and CD25, cells were separated into 3 fractions; fraction 1 consisted of CD4^- cells, fraction 2 consisted of CD4⁺CD25^- cells and fraction 3 consisted of CD4⁺CD25⁺ cells (A). Thereafter, 2 sets of lymphocyte preparations were reconstituted by remixing fractions 1, 2 and 3 or by remixing fractions 1 and 2 (B). They were stimulated with HBcAg to finally stain a CD4⁺IFN-γ⁺ population (C).