The natural cytotoxicity receptors NKp46/NCR1, NKp44/NCR2 and NKp30/NCR3 are critical for natural killer (NK) cell functions. Their genes are transcribed into several splice variants whose physiological relevance is not yet fully understood. Here we report that decidua basalis NK (dNK) cells of the pregnant uterine mucosa and peripheral blood NK (pNK) cells, two functionally distinct subsets of...

Natural killer (NK) cells play a crucial role in regulating immune functions. Few studies have characterized canine NK cells. We previously demonstrated that canine peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) with a low surface CD5 density (CD5lo) are considered a critical NK population. Natural killer cells in most mammals do not express T-cell markers, but canine CD5lo cells express surface molecules...

background: recurrent spontaneous abortion (rsa) and in vitro fertilization (ivf) failure with unknown causes are the controversial issues that are probably related to the immune system. objective: to compare circulating nk cells expressing activation and inhibition surface markers between patients with rsa and ivf failure with those of healthy multiparous and successful ivf control women, resp...

Objective Inflammation plays an important role in endometriosis and adenomyosis. Progestin has been used for symptomatic treatment of adenomyosis, although its effect on inflammation has not been studied. We conducted a randomized controlled study to investigate the changes of immune cell expression, i.e. macrophages and natural killer cells, in the tissue obtained from women with adenomyosis w...

Natural killer (NK) cells are critical effectors in the immune response against malignancy and infection, and microRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in NK cell biology. Here we examined miRNA profiles of human NK cells from different cell compartments (peripheral blood, cord blood, and uterine deciduas) and of NKT and T cells from peripheral blood, and we identified a novel miRNA, miR-362-5p, ...

background: human peripheral blood nk cells constitutively express cd56 and cd16 antigens. peripheral blood nk cells seem to be strongly related with decidual nk cells, and may reflect the decidual nk cell functional status. there are varied reports concerning the relationship between nk cell cytotoxicity in women with recurrent spontaneous abortion. objective: to study nk activity in women wit...

BACKGROUND One immune characteristic of endometriosis is a decrease in natural killer (NK) cell activity. This study was performed to determine whether an abnormal immune reaction in an endometriosis animal model could be transferred to an animal of the same species. METHODS An endometriosis model was prepared using 8 week old female rats by grafting a small section of one uterine horn onto t...

At the late secretory phase of the menstrual cycle and in early pregnancy, the uterine mucosa is infiltrated by large numbers of natural killer (NK) cells with a distinctive phenotype (CD56bright CD16- CD3-) and large granular lymphocyte (LGL) morphology. Circulating CD56bright NK cells generally proliferate in the presence of interleukin-2 (IL-2), but it is clear that cofactors besides IL-2 ar...

Initiation of the adaptive immune response is dependent on the priming of naive T cells by APCs. Proteomic analysis of unactivated and activated human NK cell membrane-enriched fractions demonstrated that activated NK cells can efficiently stimulate T cells, since they upregulate MHC class II molecules and multiple ligands for TCR costimulatory molecules. Furthermore, by manipulating antigen ad...

Expression of the oestrogen and progesterone receptors on uterine mucosal leukocytes has been examined by dual immunohistology. Neither the oestrogen receptor nor the progesterone receptor was expressed by lymphocytes, macrophages or the distinctive population of uterine natural killer (NK) cells. Although the accumulation and survival of these NK cells appears to be hormonally dependent, the e...