Division of Rheumatology, Department of Pediatrics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
Immunol Rev. 2010 May;235(1):297-305. doi: 10.1111/j.0105-2896.2010.00891.x.
Natural killer (NK) cells are lymphocytes with the capacity to produce cytokines and kill target cells upon activation. NK cells have long been categorized as members of the innate immune system and as such have been thought to follow the 'rules' of innate immunity, including the principle that they have no immunologic memory, a property thought to be strictly limited to adaptive immunity. However, recent studies have suggested that NK cells have the capacity to alter their behavior based on prior activation. This property is analogous to adaptive immune memory; however, some NK cell memory-like functions are not strictly antigen dependent and can be demonstrated following cytokine stimulation. Here, we discuss the recent evidence that NK cells can exhibit properties of immunologic memory, focusing on the ability of cytokines to non-specifically induce memory-like NK cells with enhanced responses to restimulation.
自然杀伤 (NK) 细胞是具有产生细胞因子和在激活后杀伤靶细胞能力的淋巴细胞。NK 细胞长期以来被归类为固有免疫系统的成员，因此被认为遵循固有免疫的“规则”，包括它们没有免疫记忆的原则，这一特性被认为严格局限于适应性免疫。然而，最近的研究表明，NK 细胞可以根据先前的激活改变其行为。这种特性类似于适应性免疫记忆；然而，一些 NK 细胞记忆样功能并不严格依赖于抗原，并且可以在细胞因子刺激后得到证明。在这里，我们讨论了最近的证据表明 NK 细胞可以表现出免疫记忆的特性，重点讨论了细胞因子非特异性诱导具有增强再刺激反应的记忆样 NK 细胞的能力。
