Hepatic expansion of a virus-specific regulatory CD8⁺ T cell population in chronic hepatitis C virus infection
J. Clin. Invest. Daniele Accapezzato, et al. 113:963 doi:10.1172/JCI20515 [Go to this article.]

Figure 2
Correlations among immunological and clinical parameters. (A) Tetramer⁺ CD8⁺CCR7⁺ cells are significantly more numerous than their CCR7^– counterparts in the peripheral (Periph.) blood of patients with chronic HCV infection. Each line represents a single patient. Only tetramer⁺ populations showing detectable CCR7⁺ cells have been considered. Statistical analysis was performed by Student’s t test for paired data. (B) Tetramer⁺CD8⁺ cells are significantly more numerous in the liver than in the peripheral blood of patients with chronic HCV infection. Each line joining a pair of circles between “Periphery” and “Liver” represents a single patient. Each “Periphery” circle represents the sum of peripheral virus-specific CD8⁺ T cell frequencies, which were detected by the single tetramers (Table 2). Each “Liver” circle represents the frequencies of virus-specific CD8⁺ LILs, as detected by the tetramer pool (Table 3). Statistical analysis was performed by Student’s t test for paired data; this included the values less than 0.01% that were arbitrarily considered 0%. (C) Frequencies of tetramer⁺CD8⁺ LILs producing IFN-γ are directly correlated with total HAI score. Statistical analysis was performed by the Spearman correlation test. (D) Frequencies of tetramer⁺CD8⁺ LILs producing IL-10 are inversely related to total HAI score. Statistical analysis was performed by the Spearman correlation test.