Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
Vaccine. 2010 Feb 25;28(9):2104-14. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2009.12.037. Epub 2009 Dec 30.
A distinguishing feature of HCV is its ability to persist in majority of the infected people. We investigated the role of HCV-core and NS3 in inducing effector T cells to mediate antiviral immunity. Our studies revealed that immunization with recombinant adenoviral vector containing HCV-core or NS3 leads to differential development of regulatory vs. effector T cells in mice, resulting in distinct outcomes of virus infection. For the first time, our studies directly demonstrate that HCV-core enhances both CD4(+) and CD8(+) T(regs) which possibly contribute to persistent infection, whereas HCV NS3 induces both CD4(+) and CD8(+) effector T cells to allow viral clearance.
丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）的一个显著特点是其在多数感染者体内持续存在的能力。我们研究了 HCV 核心蛋白和 NS3 在诱导效应 T 细胞介导抗病毒免疫中的作用。研究结果表明，用含有 HCV 核心蛋白或 NS3 的重组腺病毒载体免疫小鼠，可导致调节性 T 细胞和效应性 T 细胞的不同发育，从而导致病毒感染的不同结果。我们的研究首次直接证明 HCV 核心蛋白可增强 CD4(+)和 CD8(+)Tregs 的功能，这可能有助于持续性感染，而 HCV NS3 则诱导 CD4(+)和 CD8(+)效应 T 细胞清除病毒。
