Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in humans is associated with an impairment of
dendritic cells (DC). It has been hypothesized that impairment of DC function may be a
central mechanism facilitating the establishment of a chronic carrier state. However, the
majority of patients studied with DC impairment to date have been identified and, thus,
inadvertently selected because of clinical manifestations leading to their diagnosis, which
may have been many years following actual infection. We set out to determine whether …