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

Figure 3 Inhibitory natural killer cell receptor expression by natural killer cells in the peripheral blood from patients with chronic hepatitis C virus with elevated alanine aminotransferase or persistently normal alanine aminotransferase and in healthy individuals. The expression of KIR2DL3 (A-C), ILT-2 (D-F) and KIR3DL1 (G-I) by NK cells and NK cell subsets in the peripheral blood from patients with chronic HCV with elevated ALT or PNALT and in healthy individuals. The solid bars represent medians; the boxes indicate the interquartile ranges and the lines show the most extreme observations. Differences were considered statistically significant for P values ≤ 0.05. HCV: Hepatitis C virus; ALT: Alanine aminotransferase; PNALT: Persistently normal ALT; NK: Natural killer cell.