Sci Immunol: What's new! Natural killer cells may also have immune memory!

21, 2020 // -- In a recent study published in the international journal Science Immunology, scientists from the Medical University of Vienna and other institutions found that a sub-group of cytotoxic NK cells may have immune memory, and so far cytotoxicity NK cells are thought to be antigen-specific, and researchers say about a third of human liver NK cells remember that viral diseases are specific to them, so in the future these cells may be expected to serve as a new target for preventive use by the human immune system to help ward off infections and viruses.
photo source: CC0 Public DomainNK cells are natural cytotoxic killer cells in human blood, and they are also a class of lymphocytes belonging to the white blood cell or lymphocyte substation, which can identify and kill such as tumor cells or infected cells Abnormally functioning cells; so far, NK cells are thought to have no memory function, meaning that they cannot kill pathogens on an antigen-specific basis, but can only respond to each invasion of the virus and the source of infection in a non-specific way. In the
study, the researchers found that there may be a class of NK cells in the liver that can help protect against infections such as hepatitis A or hepatitis B and remember pathogens;
researcher Storey said that this particular NK cell can mediate an effective antigen-specific response process and may be expected to be a special candidate to help develop therapeutic or preventive vaccination strategies, with healthy people carrying about 5% to 15% of these NK cells in the body's blood, and The liver can also act as a repository of these NK cells, and the next step will be for researchers to delve deeper into revealing the key role these NK cells play in the development of infectious diseases, as well as to clarify whether the NK cells complement the missing memory function of the body in patients with rare T lymphocytes and B lymphocyte functional immunodeficiency.
() Original source: Victoria Stary, Ram Vinay Pandey, Johanna Strobl, et al. A discrete subset of epigenetically primed human NK cells mediates antigen-specific immune responses, Science Immunology (2020). DOI: 10.1126 / sciimmunol.aba6232