Highly read on www.rupress.org in January

After acute infection with hepatitis C, some people recover whereas others develop chronic disease. Contrary to expectation, the latter group launches the same initial immune response against the virus as the former.

Recovery from hepatitis C infection was thought to be heralded by a broad response by CD4+ T cells, which had not previously been detected in most patients with chronic disease. But Georg Lauer of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and his colleagues detected these cells in the blood samples of 31 patients with acute infection, including 13 who later advanced to chronic disease. The researchers cultured the immune cells and, with the aid of sensitive fluorescent labelling, showed that the cells later disappeared from samples taken from the chronic disease group.

Early antiviral therapy can prevent the loss of CD4+ T cells, suggesting a possible means by which to prevent the development of chronic infection.

J. Exp. Med. 209, 61–75 (2012)