Herpesviruses are main sculptors of natural killer (NK) cell repertoires. While the ?-herpesvirus human cytomegalovirus (CMV) drives accumulation adaptive NKG2C-positive NK cells, ?-herpesvirus Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) expands early differentiated NKG2A-positive cells. cells support immunity by antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, seem to preferentially target lytic EBV replicating B The i...

We examined the possibility that the anti-estrogens, tamoxifen (TX) and toremifen (TO) interacted with the immune system. Indeed, both TX and TO stimulated cells mediated cytotoxicity reactions by various killer cells: killer T (TK), natural killer (NK), lymphokine activated killer (LAK) cells. Both TX and TO inhibited the growth of tumors that express estrogen receptors. Thus these antiestroge...

BACKGROUND Natural killer cells have been demonstrated to exert remarkable graft-versus-leukemia effects after haploidentical transplantation. Acquisition of both, inhibiting and activating, receptors on developing natural killer cells is an important step in their functional maturation. Here, we report on the reconstitution of natural killer receptors after haploidentical transplantation of T-...

We analyzed the impact of human cytomegalovirus infection on the development of natural killer cells in 27 pediatric patients affected by hematological malignancies, who had received a HLA-haploidentical hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, depleted of both α/β+ T cells and B cells. In line with previous studies in adult recipients of umbilical cord blood transplantation, we found that huma...

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I molecules on hematopoietic cancers and melanomas inhibit attack by natural killer lymphocytes, but previous studies have not consistently demonstrated that carcinoma cells are protected by HLA class I expression. We investigated whether HLA class I molecules protect oral and pharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma cells from natural killer lymphocyte attack. Squ...

The analysis of gene function in mature and activated natural killer cells has been hampered by the lack of model systems for Cre-mediated recombination in these cells. Here we have investigated the utility of GzmbCre for recombination of loxp sequences in these cells predicated on the observation that Gzmb mRNA is highly expressed in mature and activated natural killer cells. Using two differe...

Background: The innate immune system against malignancies is mainly orchestrated by natural killer cells, which carry out killing mechanisms by using their receptors, such as killer immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs). This study was designed to determine the diversity of KIR genes in non-melanoma skin cancers. Methods: A total of 160 subjects with skin cancer, including 60 cases of squamous c...