The pathogenesis of herpes zoster is closely linked to reduced varicella-zoster virus-specific cell-mediated immunity. However, little is known about the interplay between natural killer cells and psychological stress in the pathogenesis of herpes zoster. This study aimed to investigate possible associations among natural killer cells, T cells and psychological stress in herpes zoster. Interfer...

Chinese hamster ovary cell lines with specific lesions in the formation of glycoconjugates were tested for their sensitivity to lysis by interferon-boosted human natural killer cells. We report here that the type of asparagine-linked carbohydrate present on target cell glycoproteins determines their susceptibility to natural killer lysis. The targets tested were Chinese hamster ovary parent cel...

Invariant natural killer T cells have a distinct developmental pathway from conventional αβ T cells. Here we demonstrate that the transcriptional repressor NKAP is required for invariant natural killer T cell but not conventional T cell development. In CD4-cre NKAP conditional knockout mice, invariant natural killer T cell development is blocked at the double-positive stage. This cell-intrinsic...

We studied the effect of protein-bound polysaccharide PSK on the activation of the human natural killer cell line NKL. We observed an increased natural killer cytotoxic activity against different tumor cells (K562, Daudi, and U937) when a standard 2- to 3-h 51chromium release assay was performed. The results parallel those obtained after treatment of the NKL cell line with interleukin-2. The hi...

Haemorrhage-induced immunosuppression has been linked to nosocomial infections. We assessed the impact of monophosphoryl lipid A, a Toll/interleukin-1 receptor-domain-containing adaptor protein inducing interferon-biased Toll-like receptor-4 agonist currently used as a vaccine adjuvant in humans, on post-haemorrhage susceptibility to infection. We used a mouse model of post-haemorrhage pneumoni...

Natural killer cells can be divided into five subpopulations based on the relative expression of CD16 and CD56 markers. The majority of natural killer cells are CD56(dim), which are considered to be the main cytotoxic effectors. A minority of the natural killer cells are CD56(bright), and function as an important source of immune-regulatory cytokines. Shifts of these subsets have been reported ...