Chronic hepatitis C virus infection irreversibly impacts human natural killer cell repertoire diversity

Benedikt Strunz, Julia Hengst, Katja Deterding, Michael P. Manns, Markus Cornberg, Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren, Heiner Wedemeyer and Niklas K. Björkström ()
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Benedikt Strunz: Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge
Julia Hengst: Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge
Katja Deterding: Hannover Medical School
Michael P. Manns: Hannover Medical School
Markus Cornberg: Hannover Medical School
Hans-Gustaf Ljunggren: Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge
Heiner Wedemeyer: Hannover Medical School
Niklas K. Björkström: Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Diversity is a central requirement for the immune system’s capacity to adequately clear a variety of different infections. As such, natural killer (NK) cells represent a highly diverse population of innate lymphocytes important in the early response against viruses. Yet, the extent to which a chronic pathogen affects NK cell diversity is largely unknown. Here we study NK cell functional diversification in chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. High-dimensional flow cytometer assays combined with stochastic neighbor embedding analysis reveal that chronic HCV infection induces functional imprinting on human NK cells that is largely irreversible and persists long after successful interventional clearance of the virus. Furthermore, HCV infection increases inter-individual, but decreases intra-individual, NK cell diversity. Taken together, our results provide insights into how the history of infections affects human NK cell diversity.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04685-9

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