Natural killer (NK) cells are innate immune cells that show strong cytolytic function against physiologically stressed cells such as tumor cells and virus-infected cells. NK cells show a broad array of tissue distribution and phenotypic variability. NK cells express several activating and inhibitory receptors that recognize the altered expression of proteins on target cells and control the cyto...

Natural killer (NK) cells have been shown to play a regulatory role in sepsis. According to the current view, NK cells become activated via macrophages or dendritic cells primed by lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Recently, TLR4 gene expression was detected in human NK cells suggesting the possibility of a direct action of LPS on NK cells. In this study, effects of LPS on NK cell cytokine production a...

OBJECTIVE To investigate VIP effect on the cytotoxicity of NK cell to gastric cancer cells in vitro and the relation between the effect with the NKG2D signal molecules in NK cells. MATERIAL AND METHODS NK cells were purified from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). Before and after NK cells were incubated with VIP or its antagonist (D-p-Cl-Phe6,Leu17)-VIP, we detected the cytotoxicity ...

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic demyelinating disease of presumed autoimmune pathogenesis. The patients with multiple sclerosis typically shows alternating relapse and remission in the early stage of illness. We previously found that in the majority of multiple sclerosis patients in a state of remission, natural killer (NK) cells contain unusually high frequencies of the cells expressing CD95 (...

Ex vivo-expanded, allogeneic natural killer (NK) cells can be used for the treatment of various types of cancer. In allogeneic NK cell therapy, NK cells from healthy donors must be expanded in order to obtain a sufficient number of highly purified, activated NK cells. In the present study, we established a simplified and efficient method for the large-scale expansion and activation of NK cells ...

Natural killer (NK) cells play an essential role in the fight against tumor development. Over the last years, the progress made in the NK-cell biology field and in deciphering how NK-cell function is regulated, is driving efforts to utilize NK-cell-based immunotherapy as a promising approach for the treatment of malignant diseases. Therapies involving NK cells may be accomplished by activating ...

NK cells express several tetraspanin proteins, which differentially modulate NK cell activities. The tetraspanin CD53 is expressed by all resting NK cells and was previously shown to decrease NK cell cytotoxicity upon ligation. Here, we show that CD53 ligation reduced degranulation of rat NK cells in response to tumour target cells, evoked redirected inhibition of killing of Fc-bearing targets,...

Natural killer (NK) cells have been defined as CD3 epsilon-, CD16+ and/or CD56+ lymphocytes that mediate major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-unrestricted cytotoxicity against certain tumors and virus-infected cells. Unlike T lymphocytes, NK cells do not rearrange or productively express T cell antigen receptor genes. Moreover, NK cells from adults have been reported to not express CD3 gamma,...