Study on relationship between CD4~+,CD25~+ regulatory T cells and HCV-RNA load in peripheral blood of patients with chronic hepatitis C

Objective To explore the amount of CD4+,CD25+ regulatory T cells in peripheral blood of patients with chronic hepatitis C(CHC) and to study the relationship between these cells and HCV-RNA load.Methods The amount of CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells in peripheral blood of 80 patients with chronic hepatitis C(CHC) and 30 healthy controls were detected by flow cytometry.The load of HCV-RNA was detected by fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction(FQ-PCR) assay.Results The amount of CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells in peripheral blood of patients with chronic hepatitis C was significantly higher than those of control group(P0.01),and the amount of CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells in peripheral blood of patients was gradually increased following the increase of HCV-RNA load(P0.01).There was a positive correlation between amount of CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells and HCV-RNA load after taking logarithm(r=0.588,P0.01),and it was same as ALT(r=0.306,P0.01).Conclusion The increase in amount of CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells in patients with CHC is in accordance with copies of HCV DNA and increased level of ALT.