Li Qing
Methods Mol Biol. 2010;598:207-19. doi: 10.1007/978-1-60761-401-2_15.
It is well known that natural killer (NK) cells are involved in defense against viruses and some tumors. NK cells kill target cells by the directed release of cytolytic granules that contain perforin, granzymes, and granulysin. It is increasingly important to evaluate NK cell function in immunotoxicity testing. NK cell function can be evaluated by determining cytolytic activity against target tumor cells by the (51)Cr-release assay and also by determining the number of NK cells in peripheral blood in humans and in the spleen in animals using flow cytometry. Recently, the intracellular levels of perforin, granzymes, and granulysin determined by flow cytometry have also been used in the evaluation of NK cell function. This chapter will describe the methods for NK cell assays in immunotoxicity testing.
众所周知，自然杀伤（NK）细胞参与抵御病毒和某些肿瘤。NK细胞通过定向释放含有穿孔素、颗粒酶和颗粒溶素的细胞溶解颗粒来杀死靶细胞。在免疫毒性测试中评估NK细胞功能变得越来越重要。NK细胞功能可以通过（51）铬释放试验测定对靶肿瘤细胞的细胞溶解活性来评估，也可以通过使用流式细胞术测定人类外周血和动物脾脏中的NK细胞数量来评估。最近，通过流式细胞术测定的穿孔素、颗粒酶和颗粒溶素的细胞内水平也已用于评估NK细胞功能。本章将描述免疫毒性测试中NK细胞检测的方法。
