Journal
BLOOD
Volume 113, Issue 11, Pages 2434-2441Publisher
AMER SOC HEMATOLOGY
DOI: 10.1182/blood-2008-05-156836
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Swedish Cancer Society
- Swedish Research Council, and Karolinska Institutet
- Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Natural killer (NK) cells express inhibitory receptors for major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I. If self-MHC is down-regulated or absent, lack of inhibition triggers missing self killing. NK cells developing in the absence of MHC class I are hypo-responsive, demonstrating that MHC class I molecules are required for NK-cell education. Here, we show that the number and the type of MHC class I alleles that are present during NK-cell education quantitatively determine the frequency of responding NK cells, the number of effector functions in individual NK cells, and the amount of interferon-gamma production in NK cells of specific Ly49 subsets. A relationship between the extent of inhibitory signals during education and functional responsiveness was corroborated by an enhanced probability of NK cells expressing more than one inhibitory receptor for a single host self-MHC class I allele to degranulate after activation. Our data suggest that the capacity of an individual NK cell to respond to stimulation is quantitatively controlled by the extent of inhibitory signals that are received from MHC class I molecules during NK-cell education. (Blood. 2009;113:2434-2441)
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available