Regulatory Role of B Cells and Its Subsets in Hepatitis E Virus Infection

Figure 1

Flow cytometric analysis of B, immature B, mature B and memory B cells upon stimulation with recombinant HEV open reading frame 2 protein (HEV-rORF2p). PBMCs from 40 acute hepatitis E patients, 29 hepatitis E recovered individuals, and 50 healthy controls were cultured in the presence/absence of HEV-rORF2p. After 72 h, cells were harvested, stained and acquired on flow cytometer. Frequencies of HEV-rORF2p stimulated (a) B, (b) immature B, (c) mature B and (d) memory B cells were determined after normalization with unstimulated cells. B cells (CD19⁺) were gated from lymphocytes while immature/transitional B (CD19⁺CD24^hiCD38^hi), mature B (CD19⁺CD24^intCD38^int) and memory B (CD19⁺CD24^hiCD38^-) cells were gated from their parent cells. The dots represent individual values and bars represent median values.

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