Detection of naïve hepatitis C virus-specific CD8+ T cells in chronically infected patients

Virus-specific CD8+ T cells play an essential role for the elimination of HCV infection; however, the exact mechanisms contributing to CD8+ T cell failure in persistent infection are not completely understood. In chronically infected patients, HCV-specific CD8+ T cells are rarely detectable ex vivo by conventional methods. Thus, it is still an open question whether the absence of these cell populations is due to a lack of priming early in infection or caused by deletion during persistent infection. To address this important question, we performed a novel tetramer enrichment protocol by using HLA-A*02-restricted…