Hepatitis B Surface Antigen Could Contribute to the Immunopathogenesis of Hepatitis B Virus Infection

Table 1

Functions and the effect of HBsAg among the various kinds of lymphoid cells.

Lymphoid cells	Function	The effect of HBsAg for immune response	Reference
Innate immune response
NK/NK-T cells	Independent of epitope cytotoxic function	Suppression of cytotoxic activity of Intrahepatic NK cells	[14]
	Cytokine secreation (IFN-gamma etc.)
Monocyte	cytokine, chemokine expression	Suppression of monocyte activation
		Suppression of LPS and IL-2 induced cytokines production	[13, 15]
Intrahepatocyte reaction; (TLR signaling)	Detection of pathogen-associated molecular pattern	Unclear
Adaptive immune response
CD8+ CTL	HBV-specific cytotoxic function	CTL exhaustion/peripheral tolerance	[18–22]
	(Perforin, IFN-gamma, etc.)
CD4+ Th cells	HBV-specific IFN-gamma secretion	Th2 commitment	[23]
Tregs	Immune suppresion via IL10 and/or cells to cell contact	Enhancing Tregs activity via stress-related proteins	[21, 23, 24]
Dendritice cells	HBV antigen presentation and secretion of cytokines	Inhibit the upregulation of costimulatory molecules on mDCs	[12, 25–27]
		Suppression of pDC function