Changes of humoral and cellular immunity in chronic hepatitis C patients of different staging

: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence produced by viral proteins in the hepatic cells and RNA of hepatitis C virus (HCV) on the indices of T- and B-cell response in 52 patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC). A relative count of peripheral-blood lymphocytes (PBL), expressing antigens CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, CD16+, CD20+ and CD95+ was estimated. The repertoire of antibodies to HCV proteins was specified. The thus obtained data were compared with an activity and a disease stage by using the histological diagnosis and alanine-amino-transferase (ALT) level as well as with the presence of HCV RNA in the serum and viral protein of the liver. Such comparison of data and the use of the correlation analysis made it possible to establish that the antibodies to NS5 protein were detected reliably more often in patients with a more pronounced hepatic fibrosis, with a higher ALT activity and with expression of HCV proteins in the liver. At the same time, the presence of proteins in the liver and of RNA in the serum were accompanied by a more active humoral response to the non-structure proteins of NS4 and NS5 as well as by more profound discrepancies of the immunity T-cell chain (a lowered ratio of CD4+/CD8+ and a smaller content of CD95+). There were no differences between PBL of the studied populations in patients with various activities and an HCV stage. A relatively bigger quantity of CD95(+)--positive PBL was found to be reliably higher in patients with viremia but lower in those cases, in which HCV proteins were detected in the liver. This confirms the inhibiting ability of HCV proteins to the Fas-mediated apoptose of PBL in CHC patient.