Immunological changes in different patient populations with chronic hepatitis C virus infection

Figure 1 Gating strategy and representative flow cytometric dot plots. Figure 1 shows the gating technique used to detect different lymphocyte subpopulations. For analysis of NK, NK^dim, NK^bright, NKT-like and CD8+ T cells cells lymphogate was created based on physical characteristics typical of lymphoid cells using forward and side scatter parameters. Representative dot plots show the expression of NKG2D, ILT-2, KIR2DL3, KIR3DL1, CD160 and NKG2C by NK cells in the peripheral blood from patients with chronic HCV with elevated ALT or PNALT and in healthy individuals. HCV: Hepatitis C virus; ALT: Alanine aminotransferase; PNALT: Persistently normal ALT; NK: Natural killer cell.