Selective Expansion of NKG2C+ Adaptive NK Cells Using K562 Cells Expressing HLA-E
Minh-Trang Thi Phan; Jinho Kim; Seung Kwon Koh; Yuree Lim; Hongbi Yu; Mijeong Lee; Jong-Min Lee; Eun-Suk Kang; Hyun-Young Kim; Sang-Ki Kim; Ilwoong Hwang; Duck Cho
Adaptive natural killer (NK) cells expressing self-specific inhibitory killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs) can be expanded in vivo in response to human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection. Developing a method to preferentially expand this subset is essential for effective targeting of allogeneic cancer cells. A previous study developed an in vitro method to generate single KIR+ NK cells for enhanced targeting of the primary acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells: however, the expansion rate was quite low. Here, we present an effective expansion method using genetically modified K562-HLA-E feeder cells for long-term proliferation of adaptive NK cells displaying highly differentiated phenotype and comparable cytotoxicity, CD107a, and interferon-&gamma: (IFN-&gamma:) production. More importantly, our expansion method achieved more than a 10,000-fold expansion of adaptive NK cells after 6 weeks of culture, providing a high yield of alloreactive NK cells for cell therapy against cancer.
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