Use of ELISpot assay to study HBs-specific B cell responses in vaccinated and HBV infected humans

Abstract

Hepatitis B surface antibody (HBsAb) plays a critical role in protecting against infection of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and were extensively studied in literature. At the same time, the status of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBs)-specific B cells in both vaccinated and HBV infected people received limited attention. In the current study, we adopted a highly specific B-cell Enzyme Linked ImmunoSpot (ELISpot) assay to analyze HBs-specific B cells in various clinical settings: healthy individuals with the history of HBV vaccination before and after receiving an extra HBV vaccine boost, people chronically infected with HBV (CHB) in various clinical stages, with or without a particular type anti-viral treatment, or whether receiving a dose of HBV vaccine. In all of these cases, B-cell ELISpot assay was used effectively in enumerating the frequency of HBs-specific B cells. While the focus of the current report was to establish the utility of this assay for HBV research, a number of interesting observations were made in this pilot study based on the profiles and dynamics of HBs-specific B cells in various conditions. Such information is useful to guide the future work in designing novel therapeutic strategies against CHB.

Acknowledgements

The study was supported from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81672025, 81501749, and 81702011), Medical Science and Technology Development Foundation of Nanjing (ZDX16004), Nanjing Science and Technology Development Plan (201503016), Jiangsu Provincial Medical Innovation Team (CXTDA2017005).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.