Expansion of HCV-specific CD8+ T cells in chronic hepatitis C patients.

Ex vivo frequencies and percentages of HCV-specific CD8+ T cells are displayed for all 24 cell lines, for which tetramer-positive cells were detectable after the 10 days culture. 2B4 expression level according to the ex vivo MFI are indicated as ‘lo’ or ‘hi’. Responses to peptide stimulation alone are marked in grey. All culture conditions with an at least 2fold increase of tetramer-positive cells as compared to peptide stimulation alone are indicated by black boxes. The highest frequency of tetramer-positive CD8+ T cells detected in each cell line is indicated in bold numbers.