3). In addition, two patients with acute-persistent HCV genotype 3a infection who presented to the University Hospital of Freiburg (3/A1) or the Massachusetts General Hospital (3/A2), respectively, were included and followed over time. In addition, the following patients infected with HCV genotype 1 were studied: One patient with acute-resolving HCV genotype 1a infection who presented screening assay to the University Hospital Freiburg (1/A1),6 one patient who developed acute-resolving HCV genotype 1a infection after receiving a contaminated patellar ligament graft (1/A2),14 two patients who had resolved HCV genotype 1b infection from a contaminated

anti-D immunoglobulin preparation in 1977 (1/R1 and 1/R2),3 one patient from the same cohort who developed chronic genotype 1b infection (1/C1), and 14 further patients with chronic HCV genotype 1 infection who presented to the University Hospital Freiburg (1/C2 to 1/C15). Data from most of the genotype 1-infected patients have been published previously6, 13 and are shown for comparison only. As negative controls, nine HLA-B27+ individuals that are HCV antibody-negative and have no history of HCV infection were included. For HLA allele frequency, a cohort of 265 patients with chronic HCV genotype 1 infection and 98 patients with chronic HCV genotype 3a infection,

respectively, who presented to the University Hospital of Freiburg was analyzed. After written informed consent and in agreement with the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki, SCH772984 price federal guidelines, and the local ethics committee, blood was obtained from the patients. EDTA anticoagulated blood was used for the isolation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) by using lymphocyte separation medium-density gradients (PAA Laboratories,

Pasching, Austria). Peptides were synthesized with a free amino and carboxy terminus by standard Fmoc chemistry by Genaxxon Bioscience (Biberach, Germany). The peptides were dissolved and diluted as described.15 Anti-CD8 PE and anti-interferon-γ (IFN-γ) fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) antibodies as well 上海皓元 as isotype phycoerythrin (PE) and FITC (all BD PharMingen, San Jose, CA) were used according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Four × 106 PBMC were resuspended in 1 mL complete medium (RPMI 1640 containing 10% fetal calf serum, 1% streptomycin/penicillin, and 1.5% HEPES buffer 1 mol/L) and stimulated with peptide at a final concentration of 10 μg/mL and anti-CD28 (BD PharMingen) at a final concentration of 0.5 μg/mL. On days 3 and 10, 1 mL complete medium (see above) and recombinant interleukin 2 (rIL-2; Hoffmann-La Roche, Basel Switzerland) at a final concentration of 20 U/mL was added to each well. On day 7 the cultures were restimulated with the corresponding peptide (10 μg/mL) and 106 irradiated autologous feeder cells (for some of the samples, no feeder cells were used due to limitation of available cell number).