BioProject

Although extensive studies have demonstrated the gene expression patterns of antigen-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells during chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, the transcriptional profiles of global CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells remains unclear. More...

Although extensive studies have demonstrated the gene expression patterns of antigen-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells during chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, the transcriptional profiles of global CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells remains unclear. In this report, we recruited 10 long-term (~20 years) treatment-naïve chronic HCV (CHC) patients and 5 healthy donors (HDs) to investigate differences in global CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells gene expression profile. Global CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells showed unique transcriptional profiles in the expression of apoptosis-related genes. We identified BCL2, PMAIP1, and CASP1 in CD4+ T-cells and IER3 and BCL2A1 in CD8+ T-cells from CHC patients as HCV-specific gene signatures. The unique apoptosis-related gene expression profilesin global CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells programmed by chronic HCV infection seemed to enhance activation-induced apoptosis, which was suffered by global CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells. Overall design: We obtained 15 blood samples to identify the gene expression signatures of global CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells due to chronic HCV infection. The samples included: 5 samples from high HCV viral load patients (HCV-h), 5 samples from low HCV viral load (HCV-l) and 5 samples from healthy donors (HD). HCV patients were all Ab+ and treatment-naive prior to the study. Samples were taken once from each individual. Global CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells were enriched by microbeads, and total RNA were used in gene chip analysis. Less...