OX40 activation could treat HBV

A study published in Science Translational Medicine shows that levels of OX40L in the liver and its receptor OX40 on T cells rise with age and could explain why adults are better at fighting off HBV than children. The results suggest boosting the pathway's activity could help treat patients of any age.

While adults are typically able to clear HBV antigens through adaptive immune responses, children under the age of five often fail to do so, leading to establishment of chronic infection. To study the age-dependent susceptibility, researchers at the University of California San Francisco and the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research of Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS; SIX:NOVN) previously developed a mouse model of HBV infection that reproduced the phenomenon, and showed the livers of the young mice failed to prime T cells against the virus...