Fig. 4

Disturbance of NK cell repertoire diversity in chronic HCV infection. a Histograms for NKp46, NKG2A, and CD161 expression for healthy controls and patients with chronic HCV. Histograms shown represent individuals in the 10^th, median, and 90^th percentile from the respective cohorts. The donor-to-donor expression variation (DEV) for each of these markers is illustrated with blue and red bars in the histograms, as well as with the figures given. b Summary of data for DEV analyzed for 14 surface receptors in healthy controls (n = 10) and patients with chronic HCV (n = 24) . c Representative staining for NKG2A, CD57, and panKIR from one healthy control and two patients with chronic HCV. Figures within plots show frequency of positive cells within the respective quadrants. d Inverse Simpson diversity index (SDI) analysis of the Boolean-gates of CD56^bright NK cells as well as NKG2A, CD57, and panKIR expression within CD56^dim NK cells for healthy controls (n = 12) and patients with chronic HCV (n = 24). Mann–Whitney (SDI) and paired t-test (DEV) were used for statistical analysis. Bars represent median values, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01