Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is one of the major risk factors for chronic hepatitis, which may progress to
cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, as well as for type II mixed cryoglobulinemia (MC), which
may further evolve into an overt B‐cell non‐Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL).
In particular, it has been previously shown that B‐cell receptor (BCR) repertoire, expressed by
clonal B‐cells involved in HCV‐associated NHL, is constrained to a limited number of variable heavy
(VH)‐ and light (VL)‐chain genes. Among these, the VK3‐20 light chain idiotype has been selected
as a target for passive as well as active immunization strategy.
Here, we present the results of a multiparametric analysis of the innate and early adaptive
immune response induced after ex vivo stimulation of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells
(PBMCs) with the recombinant VK3‐20 protein. This objective has been pursued performing gene
expression profiling analysis as well as multiparameter flow cytometry and multiplex analyses of
cytokines
Studi recenti hanno dimostrato una stretta correlazione tra infezione cronica da HCV e sviluppo di crioglobulinemia mista di tipo II (MC), che nel 10% dei casi può evolvere a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) a cellule B. La stimolazione antigenica di cloni di cellule B indotta da immunocomplessi contenenti antigeni virali sembra essere alla base della patogenesi della MC di tipo II e del NHL. Il clone di cellule B del NHL esprime la proteina VK3-20, in studio come modello terapeutico per lo sviluppo di un vaccino idiotipico
