Tolerant and diverse natural killer cell repertoires in the absence of selection

• Published in: Experimental cell research Vol. 316; no. 8; pp. 1309 - 1315
• Main Authors: Andersson, Sandra, Malmberg, Jenny-Ann, Malmberg, Karl-Johan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.05.2010; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Animals; Cellular biology; Education; Histocompatibility Antigens Class I - metabolism; Humans; Immune Tolerance; Immunoglobulins; Immunology; Killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors; Killer Cells, Natural - immunology; Medicin och hälsovetenskap; Natural killer cells; NK Cell Lectin-Like Receptor Subfamily D - metabolism; Receptors, KIR - metabolism; Selection; Tolerance; Tumors; Virology; Tolerance; Natural killer cells; Education; Selection; Killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors
• ISSN: 0014-4827; 1090-2422; 1090-2422
• DOI: 10.1016/j.yexcr.2010.02.030

Natural killer (NK) cells are innate lymphocytes that participate in the early control of viruses and tumors. The function of NK cells is under tight regulation by two complementary inhibitory receptor families that bind to classical and non-classical HLA class I molecules: the CD94/NKG2A receptors and the killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs). In this mini-review, recent data on the structure of human NK cell receptor repertoires and its relation to functional responses and tolerance to self are discussed. We propose that no active selection is required to generate diverse NK cell repertoires characterized by a dominant expression of receptors with specificity for self-HLA class I. Instead, the primary consequence of interactions with HLA class I molecules is a functional tuning of randomly generated NK cell repertoires.