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CD8⁺ T Cells Mediate Viral Clearance and Disease Pathogenesis during Acute Hepatitis B Virus Infection

Robert Thimme,^1, Stefan Wieland,¹ Carola Steiger,¹ John Ghrayeb,² Keith A. Reimann,³ Robert H. Purcell,⁴ and Francis V. Chisari^1*

Department of Molecular and Experimental Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California,¹ Centocor, Malvern, Pennsylvania,² Division of Viral Pathogenesis, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts,³ Hepatitis Viruses Section, Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland⁴

Received 5 August 2002/ Accepted 24 September 2002

Although the CD4⁺- and CD8⁺-T-cell responses to the hepatitis B virus (HBV) are thought to be crucial for the control of HBV infection, the relative contribution of each T-cell subset as an effector of viral clearance is not known. To examine this question, we monitored the course of HBV infection in control, CD4-depleted, and CD8-depleted chimpanzees. Our results demonstrate that CD8⁺ cells are the main effector cells responsible for viral clearance and disease pathogenesis during acute HBV infection, and they suggest that viral clearance is mediated by both noncytolytic and cytolytic effector functions of the CD8⁺-T-cell response.

This article is number 15148-MEM from the Scripps Research Institute.

Present address: University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.

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