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

Table 1 Peripheral blood mononuclear cell phenotype characteristics in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus with elevated alanine aminotransferase or persistently normal alanine aminotransferase and in healthy individuals

	Healthy individuals	Chronic HCV with elevated ALT	HCV carriers with PNALT
Percentage of PBL
CD3+CD4+	29.38 ± 8.11	33.15 ± 9.08	34.46 ± 6.49
CD3+CD4+CD25+	4.27 ± 1.62	4.05 ± 1.57	5.24 ± 1.43
CD3+CD4+CD25bright+	0.52 ± 0.26	0.38 ± 0.26	0.40 ± 0.13
CD3+CD56+	2.99 ± 1.73	5.07 ± 4.15	3.48 ± 2.72
CD3-CD56+	17.34 ± 7.42	16.42 ± 5.26	17.04 ± 7.71
CD3-CD56dim+	16.04 ± 7.36	14.58 ± 5.72	15.92 ± 7.14
CD3-CD56bright+	1.15 ± 0.64	1.75 ± 1.54	1.27 ± 1.01
CD3+CD8+	28.59 ± 4.55	25.27 ± 8.77	24.66 ± 6.14

Statistical comparisons were made by using the ANOVA tests. The results were expressed as the mean value ± SD. HCV: Hepatitis C virus; ALT: Alanine aminotransferase; PNALT: Persistently normal ALT; NK: Natural killer cell.

Table 2 Cytokine production by natural killer cell and CD8+ T 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

	IL-2	IL-4	IL-5	IL-10	TNF-α	IFN-γ
NK cells
Healthy individuals	400.4 ± 357.4	32.4 ± 23.5	6.3 ± 1.39	5.50 ± 0.23	1301.7 ± 417.3	2739.2 ± 61.2
Chronic HCV with elevated ALT	817.3 ± 316.2	20.2 ± 8.6c	27.9 ± 15.6	9.30 ± 1.63a	3034.3 ± 649.7ac	3268.6 ± 140.4a
HCV carriers with PNALT	1182.3 ± 447.7e	169.5 ± 48.1a	18.3 ± 5.83e	9.70 ± 1.22a	4491.6 ± 148.6b	3231 ± 77.9b
CD8+
Healthy individuals	1944.5 ± 303.9	26.1 ± 6.9	65.5 ± 20.8	18.2 ± 4.9	1369.0 ± 224.5	2608.4 ± 81.2
Chronic HCV with elevated ALT	2440.5 ± 378.3	276.3 ± 98.1a	461.2 ± 213.9a	58.3 ± 15.8ac	3247.4 ± 590.8a	2721.9 ± 78.7
HCV carriers with PNALT	2502.1 ± 238.5e	253.1 ± 95.2a	374.8 ± 171.6a	258.3 ± 71.9e	3895.0 ± 218.3b	2719.7 ± 127.0

Concentrations of cytokines are given in picograms per milliliter (mean ± SD).

^aP < 0.05,

^eP < 0.02,

^bP < 0.001, vs healthy individuals, significantly different;

^cP < 0.05 vs symptomatic individuals, significantly different. HCV: Hepatitis C virus; ALT: Alanine aminotransferase; PNALT: Persistently normal ALT; NK: Natural killer cell; IL-2: Interleukin-2; TNF-α: Tumor necrosis factor α; IFN-γ: Interferon-γ.