There is no vaccine to prevent HCV infection and only a subset of patients respond to antiviral therapy.1 HCV infection is a highly dynamic process, with a viral half-life of only a few hours and average daily virion production of estimated 1012 particles in a given individual. This high replicative activity together with the lack of a proofreading function of the viral polymerase leads to a high genetic variability of HCV.2 Approximately 30% of individuals spontaneously clear acute HCV infection. Clearance

of HCV infection has been associated with a strong Maraviroc price and sustained T-cell response targeting multiple HCV regions, as recently reviewed.3 Although HCV-specific memory T cells remain detectable for decades in patients with resolved HCV infection, they appear not to be sufficient to prevent HCV infection upon reexposure to the virus. However, selleck kinase inhibitor the reduced risk of developing persistent HCV infection upon viral reexposure in frequently exposed subjects indicates that the immune system can develop some degree of protective immunity against HCV.4-6 Thus, vaccine approaches that are capable of converting an evolving chronic infection into an acute self-limiting infection would have a substantial impact for protection from disease.7, 8 Experimental HCV infection in chimpanzees is currently the only established in vivo model for the

study of HCV infection. In contrast to humans, chimpanzees clear HCV infection more frequently (50%-60%),9 making it an attractive model to study immunological determinants involved in selleckchem HCV

clearance and protection. Several studies in chimpanzees demonstrated that protective immunity upon viral rechallenge with HCV of the same genotype and even with other genotypes is associated with a rapid and vigorous HCV-specific T-cell response and the induction of intrahepatic interferon gamma (IFN-γ).10-13 But other studies showed that chimpanzees are not consistently protected even upon homologous rechallenge and in the presence of primed T cells.14, 15 Many studies in HCV-infected humans supported the importance of T-cell response in viral clearance either during primary infection or reinfection (review3). However, these studies investigated the peripheral immune response and did not explore intrahepatic immune responses in a comprehensive manner. These findings indicate that the immunological determinants mediating protective immunity are quite complex and not completely understood, and studies of intrahepatic immune responses may be crucial to understand these protective determinants. To identify immunological determinants associated with protective immunity upon HCV reexposure, we performed an extensive analysis of the innate and adaptive immune responses following HCV rechallenge in two chimpanzees that had previously recovered from primary HCV-JFH1 infection.