Carlos Maria P, Yamamura Yasuhiro, Vu Quynh, Conzen Kendra, Anderson David E, Torres José V
Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Clin Immunol. 2004 Apr;111(1):22-7. doi: 10.1016/j.clim.2003.11.012.
Cellular immunity against multiple Hepatitis C virus (HCV) proteins is observed in patients acutely infected with HCV most of whom later resolve infection. We wished to assess humoral immunity in patients infected with HCV 1a or 1b genotypes in relation to viral load using plasma samples from HCV-infected individuals and a panel of peptides representing immunodominant epitopes of HCV structural and nonstructural proteins. Plasma from HCV 1a- and 1b-infected patients, respectively, were divided into two groups: patients with low viral load (<==100,000 RNA copies/ml) and patients with high viral load (>/=10,000,000 RNA copies/ml). The antigens were peptides representing epitopes from immunodominant regions of HCV core, E2, NS3, and NS4 proteins, as well as the hypervariable (HVR) epitopes in E2 from genotypes 1a and 1b. Individuals infected with HCV 1a evoked a stronger immune response to many immunodominant epitopes of HCV relative to individuals infected with HCV 1b. Moreover, among individuals infected with HCV 1a, those with low viral loads mounted significantly greater responses against these epitopes than did individuals with high viral loads. Our observations demonstrate that quantitatively different antibody responses are elicited against HCV depending on the genotype of infecting virus, and suggest that humoral immunity directed against multiple immunodominant epitopes in HCV 1a-infected individuals may help lower viral load in vivo.
在急性感染丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）的患者中可观察到针对多种HCV蛋白的细胞免疫，其中大多数患者后来清除了感染。我们希望使用来自HCV感染个体的血浆样本以及一组代表HCV结构和非结构蛋白免疫显性表位的肽段，评估感染HCV 1a或1b基因型的患者的体液免疫与病毒载量的关系。分别将来自HCV 1a和1b感染患者的血浆分为两组：病毒载量低（<==100,000 RNA拷贝/ml）的患者和病毒载量高（>/=10,000,000 RNA拷贝/ml）的患者。抗原是代表HCV核心、E2、NS3和NS4蛋白免疫显性区域表位的肽段，以及1a和1b基因型E2中的高变（HVR）表位。相对于感染HCV 1b的个体，感染HCV 1a的个体对HCV的许多免疫显性表位引发了更强的免疫反应。此外，在感染HCV 1a的个体中，病毒载量低的个体对这些表位的反应明显强于病毒载量高的个体。我们的观察结果表明，根据感染病毒的基因型，针对HCV会引发数量上不同的抗体反应，并表明针对HCV 1a感染个体中多种免疫显性表位的体液免疫可能有助于降低体内病毒载量。
