CD8 + T-Cell Response-Associated Evolution of Hepatitis B Virus Core Protein and Disease Progress

The specific patterns of sequence polymorphisms of T-cell epitopes and the immune mechanisms of the HBV epitope mutation-linked disease progression are largely unclear. In this study, we systematically evaluated the contribution of CD8 + T cells to the disease progress-associated evolution of HBV. By evaluation of patient T-cell responses based on the peptide repertoire, we comprehensively characterized the association of clinical parameters in chronic hepatitis B with the antiviral T-cell response-associated mutations of the viruses from the single-epitope level to the overall HLA-I-restricted peptide levels. Furthermore, we investigated the molecular basis of the HLA-A2-restricted peptide immune escape and found that the solvent-exposed C-terminal portion of the epitopes is highly variable under CDR3β recognition. Our work may provide a comprehensive evaluation of viral mutations impacted by the host CTL response in HBV disease progression in the context of the full repertoire of HBc-derived epitopes.