Natural killer (NK) cells have been known to enhance the host immune responses against cancer. NK cell number and cytotoxicity in patients with cancer is often low. Therefore, we developed a large-scale ex vivo NK cell expansion method without feeder layers and introduced NK cell-based autologous immune enhancement therapy (AIET). In this paper, we discuss the epidemiological data that show the...

Extranodal natural killer cell (NK) T lymphoma (ENKL) is a rare type of non Hodgkins lymphoma, accounting for 5% 10% total NHL cases.

EDITORIAL article Front. Immunol., 03 July 2023Sec. NK and Innate Lymphoid Cell Biology Volume 14 - 2023 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1242754

Acquisition of a functional NK cell repertoire, known as education or licensing, is a complex process mediated through inhibitory receptors that recognize self. We found that NK cells containing self-killer Ig-like receptors for cognate HLA ligand in vivo were less susceptible to apoptosis. In vitro IL-15 withdrawal showed that uneducated NK cells upregulated Bim and Fas. Conversely, educated N...

Clinical studies with adoptive immunotherapy using allogeneic natural killer (NK) cells showed feasibility, but also limitation regarding the transfused absolute cell numbers. First promising results with peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) as feeder cells to improve the final cell number need further optimization and investigation of the unknown controlling mechanism in the cross-talk t...

Detailed analysis of the natural killer (NK) activity directed at nontumorigenic cell lines and their transformed tumorigenic derivatives has revealed a paradox. On the one hand, a correlation has been found between the tumorigenic potential of chemically transformed fibroblast cell lines and their sensitivity to NK cells in vitro. Nontransformed cells (N-type cell lines) and cells tumorigenic ...

Complement receptor 3 (CR3) is expressed abundantly on natural killer (NK) cells; however, whether it plays roles in NK cell-dependent tumor surveillance is largely unknown. Here, we show that CR3 is an important negative regulator of NK cell function, which has negative impact on tumor surveillance. Mice deficient in CR3 (CD11b-/- mice) exhibited a more activated NK phenotype and had enhanced ...

Altered sialic acid processing that leads to upregulation of cell surface sialylation is recognized as a key change in malignant tissue glycosylation. This cancer-associated hypersialylation directly impacts the signaling interactions between tumor cells and their surrounding microenvironment, especially the interactions mediated by immune cell surface sialic acid-binding immunoglobulin-like le...

Dendritic-cell (DC) and natural killer (NK)-cell interactions are critical in sculpting the adaptive immune response. However, the mechanisms by which DCs down-regulate NK-cell functions are not well understood. NK-cell function is inhibited by transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta), but DCs do not appear to produce TGF-beta. We have previously shown that activated human DCs produce large a...