Analysis of HLA-B27-Restricted Hepatitis C Virus-Specific CD8+ T Cell Responses in Acute Resolving Hepatitis

It is widely accepted that virus-specific CD8+ T cell responses play an important role in the outcome of HCV infection, since viral clearance is associated with vigorous and multispecific HCV-specific CD8+ T cell responses. In addition, the important role of virus-specific CD8+ T cells has been directly demonstrated by CD8+ T cell depletion studies in chimpanzees. Recently, it has been shown that distinct HLA class I alleles are associated with HCV clearance. The strongest association between HLA class I alleles and viral clearance has been demonstrated for HLA-B27. Importantly, HLA-B27 has also been shown to ha…