T-cell Dysfunction in Chronic HBV Infection

Plain-language summary

Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection remains an important public health with more than 240 million people chronically infected despite the existence of an effective vaccine. Cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are major complications of CHB infection and are responsible for more than 600,000 deaths each year. These complications are strongly related to the function of the immune system. Indeed, the persistence of HBV and the progression of liver disease are mainly due to the development of an ineffective immune response to HBV. Therefore, the clinical outcome depends on the complex interaction between HBV replication and adaptive immune responses. The ultimate goal of antiviral treatments is the elimination of HBsAgHBs and the appearance of anti-HBs antibodies without detectable PCR replication. Current treatments are effective at lowering viral DNA levels, but they are not able to permanently eliminate chronic HBV infection, due to the persistence of cDNA in the nucleus of infected hepatocytes. This therapeutic goal is rarely achieved and new therapeutic approaches are needed. In this sense, Immunotherapy represents a very promising new therapeutic approach that could lead to the cure of chronic HBV infection. Indeed, HBV infection is characterized by a progressive depletion of T lymphocytes which results in a progressive loss of function, associated with a sustained positive regulation of inhibitory control molecules. Thus, the objective of this study is to define the immune signature and the main control pathways associated with T-cell depletion in patients chronically infected with HBV, by analyzing immune cells isolated from these patients at phenotypic , transcriptional and functional levels

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