Abstract
Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection is a serious and prevalent health concern worldwide, and the development of effective drugs and strategies to combat this disease is urgently needed. Currently, pegylated interferon-alpha (peg-IFNα) and nucleoside/nucleotide analogues (NA) are the most commonly prescribed treatments. However, sustained response rates in patients remain low, and the reasons are not well understood. Here, we observed that CHB patients preferentially harbored CD3(bright)CD56(+) T cells, a newly identified CD56(+) T cell population. Patients with this unique T cell population exhibited relatively poor responses to peg-IFNα treatment. CD3(bright)CD56(+) T cells expressed remarkably high levels of the inhibitory molecule NKG2A as well as low levels of CD8. Even if patients were systematically treated with peg-IFNα, CD3(bright)CD56(+) T cells remained in an inhibitory state throughout treatment and exhibited suppressed antiviral function. Furthermore, peg-IFNα treatment rapidly increased inhibitory TIM-3 expression on CD3(bright)CD56(+) T cells, which negatively correlated with IFNγ production and might have led to their dysfunction. This study identified a novel CD3(bright)CD56(+) T cell population preferentially shown in CHB patients, and indicated that the presence of CD3(bright)CD56(+) T cells in CHB patients may be useful as a new indicator associated with poor therapeutic responses to peg-IFNα treatment.