Expression of intrahepatic CD4+ CD25+ regulatory T cells in patients with chronic hepatitis B / 中华实验和临床病毒学杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the expression and distribution of intrahepatic CD4+ CD25+ regulatory T cells in immuno-tolerant and immuno-clearance phase of patients with chronic hepatitis B.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The expression of FoxP3 was detected in 19 cases of immuno-tolerant phase and 12 cases of immuno-clearance phase by immunohistochemistry. The relation between the intrahepatic expression of FoxP3 and the clinicopathological features were analyzed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The positive signal of FoxP3 is located in nuclear of lymphocyte and mainly aggregated in portal areas as well as occasionally scattered in hepatic sinusoids. The expression of intrahepatic FoxP3 in the group of immuno-tolerant phase was significantly increased than those in normal control (P < 0.01), and greatly decreased than those in immuno-clearance phase (P < 0.01). No correlation was observed among the expression of intrahepatic FoxP3, ALT, levels of HBV DNA, HBeAg positive, in patients of immuno-clearance phase, respectively. There were significant differences between immuno-tolerant phase and immuno-clearance phase age, ALT, TBIL, PTA, HBV-DNA and detection of HBeAg but not in sex and family history of HBV infection.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>CD4+ CD25+ regulatory T cells may play important roles in the clearance of HBV as well as in liver inflammation and injury during chronic HBV infection.</p>