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Unaltered lymphocyte subsets in hepatitis C virus‐seropositive blood donors
Author(s) -
Prince H.E.,
Fang C.T.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
transfusion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.045
H-Index - 132
eISSN - 1537-2995
pISSN - 0041-1132
DOI - 10.1046/j.1537-2995.1992.32292180148.x
Subject(s) - immunology , cd38 , hepatitis c virus , cd8 , virology , virus , flow cytometry , immune system , antigen , biology , lymphocyte , medicine , genetics , stem cell , cd34
Lymphocyte subsets were evaluated by dual‐color flow cytometry in whole blood specimens from 35 blood donors who were seropositive on enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for hepatitis C virus (HCV) and whose sera reacted in a four‐antigen recombinant immunoblot assay (RIBA) (referred to as the HCV+R group), 15 donors who were seropositive on ELISA for HCV with indeterminate or negative RIBA results (the HCV+I/N group), and 25 HCV‐seronegative controls (HCV ‐ group). The cell subsets assessed included natural killer cells, B cells, T cells, CD4 and CD8 subsets of T cells, and T‐cell subsets defined by the coexpression of markers that appear (HLA‐DR, CD25, CD38) or disappear (CD45RA) after activation. A one‐way analysis of variance revealed no significant differences among the three study groups. These findings show that, unlike cytomegalovirus‐ and human immunodeficiency virus‐positive individuals, HCV‐positive individuals do not exhibit lymphocyte alterations indicative of the immune activation caused by chronic viral infection.