Natural killer lines and clones with apparent antigen specificity

Fresh CD3-, CD16+ lymphocytes that adhered to selected allogeneic lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCL) were cultured with LCL in the presence of IL-2-containing medium. The resulting lines as well as clones derived from these lines expressed CD16 and/or CD56, but lacked detectable CD3 or TCR-alpha/beta or TCR-gamma/delta complexes on the cell surface. Northern blot analysis failed to detect CD3 epsilon or TCR-beta transcripts, but revealed the presence of a TCR-gamma chain transcript in one of these lines. In addition to displaying potent cytolytic activity against K562 erythroleukemia cells (a classical NK target), the vast majority of these lines and clones lysed their specific stimulator LCL to a significantly greater extent than irrelevant LCL. This selective killing was inhibited by the addition of cold stimulator LCL or K562 cells, or anti-LFA 1 mAbs, but not by irrelevant LCL or mAbs to CD3, class I or class II MHC antigens. These results indicate that some CD3- lymphocytes, phenotypically indistinguishable from NK cells, can recognize and lyse allogeneic targets in a specific manner.