Recovery of NK(CD56+CD3-) Cells after One Year of Tenofovir Therapy for Chronic Hepatitis B Infection.

Natural killer (NK) cells have been reported to be dysfunctional in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection. However, the functional recovery of NK cells under antiviral therapeutic agents in CHB was not clearly understood. In this study, we investigated the phenotypic changes of NK(CD56+CD3-) cells in terms of their functional markers (CD16, NKG2A, NKG2D) during tenofovir therapy in CHB. The frequency of NK(CD56+CD3-) cells in CHB patients was significantly increased after 12 months of tenofovir therapy when compared with baseline. The expression levels of CD16+/CD56+CD3- and NKG2A+/CD56+CD3- cells were also affected by tenofovir treatment. In addition, there was a positive correlation between the proportion of NK(CD56+CD3-) cells and HBV DNA (log copies/ml) in CHB patients.