Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U970, PARCC, Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France.
Eur J Immunol. 2013 Feb;43(2):331-4. doi: 10.1002/eji.201243264.
Natural killer (NK) cells express a set of activating and inhibitory receptors which, after interaction with their ligands, determine whether or not the target cell will be lysed. Many studies have clearly demonstrated that NK cells have the capacity to lyse stressed cells (such as tumor or virally-infected cells). However, NK cells that infiltrate tumors usually exhibit phenotypic and functional defects. In this issue of the European Journal of Immunology, Vacca et al. [Eur. J. Immunol. 2013. 43: 550-561] show that NK cells in pleural effusions of primary and metastatic tumors of various origins are not anergic, possibly because the downregulation of activating receptors and the upregulation of inhibitory receptors does not occur, as previously reported for tumor NK cells. Another major finding of this study is the capacity of these pleural NK cells to respond to IL-2 stimulation, as the authors demonstrate that pleural NK cells stimulated by IL-2 in long-term culture acquire the capacity to lyse autologous tumor cells isolated from pleural effusions. These results support the treatment of primary or metastatic pleural tumors with IL-2 or other innovative strategies currently being developed to stimulate NK cells in cancer patients as discussed in this Commentary.
自然杀伤 (NK) 细胞表达一组激活和抑制受体，这些受体与它们的配体相互作用后，决定靶细胞是否被裂解。许多研究清楚地表明，NK 细胞具有裂解应激细胞（如肿瘤或病毒感染的细胞）的能力。然而，浸润肿瘤的 NK 细胞通常表现出表型和功能缺陷。在本期的《欧洲免疫学杂志》中，Vacca 等人[Eur. J. Immunol. 2013. 43: 550-561]表明，来自各种来源的原发性和转移性肿瘤胸腔积液中的 NK 细胞不是无反应性的，这可能是因为激活受体的下调和抑制受体的上调没有发生，如先前报道的肿瘤 NK 细胞那样。这项研究的另一个主要发现是这些胸腔 NK 细胞对 IL-2 刺激的反应能力，因为作者证明，在长期培养中，IL-2 刺激的胸腔 NK 细胞获得了裂解从胸腔积液中分离出的自体肿瘤细胞的能力。这些结果支持用 IL-2 或其他目前正在开发的创新策略治疗原发性或转移性胸腔肿瘤，正如本评论中所讨论的，这些策略旨在刺激癌症患者的 NK 细胞。
