Unraveling Natural Killer T-Cells Development

Unraveling Natural Killer T-Cells Development

Natural killer T-cells are a subset of innate-like T-cells with the ability to bridge innate and adaptive immunity. There is great interest in harnessing these cells to improve tumor therapy; however, greater understanding of invariant NKT (iNKT) cell biology is needed. The first step is to learn more about NKT development within the thymus. Recent studies suggest lineage separation of murine i...

Invariant Natural Killer T Cells

Invariant Natural killer T cell (iNKT cells) are a subset of T cells, which are narrowly defined as a T cell lineage expressing a semi-invariant CD1d-restricted T cell Receptors (TCRs) composed by Vα24-Jα18/Vβ11 in human, and Vα14-Jα18/Vβ8,Vβ7, and Vβ2 in mouse. Unlike conventional T cells which recognize peptides bound to highly polymorphic major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and II...

Development of human T and natural killer cells.

Comparison of Two Flow Cytometric Methods for Detection of Human Invariant Natural Killer T Cells (iNKT)

Background: Invariant natural killer cells (iNKT) are an important immunoregulatory T cell subset. Currently several flow cytometry-based approaches exist for the identifi-cation of iNKT cells, which rely on using the 6B11 monoclonal antibody or a combina-tion of anti-Vα24 and anti-Vβ11 antibodies. Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the ability of two flow cytometry-based methods f...

Unraveling human natural killer cell deficiency.

NK cells are a component of the innate immune system identified in animals as serving an essential role in antiviral immunity. Establishing their role in human health has been challenging, with the most direct insight coming from the study of NK cell-deficient individuals. However, NK cell deficiencies are rare, and more research is needed. In this issue of the JCI, two independent groups of re...