Cellular immune response to Hantaan virus nucleocapsid protein during the acute phase of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome: negative correlation with disease severity (128.13)

Abstract

Abstract The cellular immune response to Hantaan virus (HTNV) is incompletely understood, especially in humans. To investigate the cellular immunity during acute HTNV infection, the magnitude of T cell response to HTNV nucleocapsid protein was quantitated by direct ex vivo IFN-γ ELISPOT using overlapping peptides. We found that the combined frequencies of HTNV-specific T cells at early time point were significantly higher in patients with mild or moderate hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) than in those with severe or critical HFRS (P = .006). Moreover, these frequencies were higher in patients with subsequent mild renal failure (maximum serum creatinine level, =707 μmol/L) than in those with subsequent severe renal failure (maximum serum creatinine level, >707 μmol/L) (P = .006). Kinetic analysis showed that a decrease in the serum creatinine level during the acute phase of illness was often accompanied by an increase in the magnitude of IFN-γ-producing T cells. These data suggest that IFN-γ-producing T cells may help reduce the risk of progression to acute renal failure caused by HTNV infection. This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.30471625).