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

Figure 5 Activating and inhibitory natural killer cell receptor expression by NKT-like 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 NKG2D (A), KIR2DL3 (B), ILT-2 (C) and KIR3DL1 (D) by NKT-like cells 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.