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Le virus de l‘hépatite C et les cellules du système immunitaire Volume 7, issue 5, septembre-octobre 2003

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Authors
Institut de virologie et unité UMR‐INSERM 544, Université Louis Pasteur, 3 rue Koeberlé, 67000 Strasbourg E‐mail : Francoise.Stollviro‐ulp.u‐strasbg.fr

Almost 80% of hepatitis C virus (HCV)‐infected patients will develop a chronic hepatitis. The strategy employed by the virus in order to persist in the organism is still unknown. Infection of cells implicated in innate and adaptative immune responses, either permissive or not, could modify their functions and allow the virus to persist. Several data suggest that HCV can replicate in B lymphocytes and monocytes\macrophages. The virus can infect dendritic cells and T lymphocytes but the production of new viral particles was not yet clearly established in these cells. However, several studies describe direct or indirect functional modifications of these cells during the chronic HCV hepatitis. All these results start constituting a puzzle of which some parts are still missing.