Hofmann Maike, Tauber Catrin, Hensel Nina, Thimme Robert
Department of Medicine II, University Hospital Freiburg-Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Hugstetter Straße 55, 79106 Freiburg, Germany.
Faculty of Biology, University of Freiburg, Schänzlestraße 1, 79104 Freiburg, Germany.
J Clin Med. 2021 Mar 2;10(5):991. doi: 10.3390/jcm10050991.
Chronic hepatitis C virus (cHCV) infection is a major global health burden and the leading cause of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the Western world. The course and outcome of HCV infection is centrally influenced by CD8 T cell responses. Indeed, strong virus-specific CD8 T cell responses are associated with spontaneous viral clearance while failure of these responses, e.g., caused by viral escape and T cell exhaustion, is associated with the development of chronic infection. Recently, heterogeneity within the exhausted HCV-specific CD8 T cells has been observed with implications for immunotherapeutic approaches also for other diseases. In HCC, the presence of tumor-infiltrating and peripheral CD8 T cell responses correlates with a favorable prognosis. Thus, tumor-associated and tumor-specific CD8 T cells are considered suitable targets for immunotherapeutic strategies. Here, we review the current knowledge of CD8+ T cell responses in chronic HCV infection and HCC and their respective failure with the potential consequences for T cell-associated immunotherapeutic approaches.
慢性丙型肝炎病毒（cHCV）感染是一项重大的全球健康负担，也是西方世界肝细胞癌（HCC）的主要病因。丙型肝炎病毒感染的病程和结果主要受CD8 T细胞反应的影响。确实，强烈的病毒特异性CD8 T细胞反应与病毒的自发清除相关，而这些反应的失败，例如由病毒逃逸和T细胞耗竭引起的，与慢性感染的发展相关。最近，已观察到耗竭的丙型肝炎病毒特异性CD8 T细胞内存在异质性，这对其他疾病的免疫治疗方法也有影响。在肝细胞癌中，肿瘤浸润性和外周CD8 T细胞反应的存在与良好的预后相关。因此，肿瘤相关和肿瘤特异性CD8 T细胞被认为是免疫治疗策略的合适靶点。在此，我们综述了慢性丙型肝炎病毒感染和肝细胞癌中CD8 + T细胞反应的现有知识，以及它们各自的失败情况及其对T细胞相关免疫治疗方法的潜在影响。
