Li Xiangming, Tsuji Moriya, Schneck Jonathan, Webb Tonya J
HIV and Malaria Vaccine Program, Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, New York, USA.
Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.
Bio Protoc. 2013 Mar 20;3(6).
Natural killer T (NKT) cells bridge the innate and adaptive arms of the immune system, and manipulating their effector functions can have therapeutic significances in the treatment of autoimmunity, transplant biology, infectious disease and cancer. This important lymphocyte subset regulates the immune system through their potent cytokine production following the recognition of lipid antigen present in the context of the MHC class I-like CD1d molecule, in addition their ability to directly mediate cytotoxicity. Here, we describe a method of expanding mouse invariant NKT (iNKT) cell lines from mononuclear cells isolated from the thymus, spleen, or liver using bone marrow derived dendritic cells. These iNKT cell lines can be used study their co-signaling requirements, cytokine profiles and cytotoxic functions which will greatly enhance our knowledge of iNKT cell biology.
自然杀伤T（NKT）细胞连接免疫系统的固有免疫和适应性免疫分支，操纵其效应功能在自身免疫性疾病、移植生物学、传染病和癌症的治疗中可能具有治疗意义。这个重要的淋巴细胞亚群通过在识别MHC I类样CD1d分子背景下存在的脂质抗原后产生强效细胞因子来调节免疫系统，此外还具有直接介导细胞毒性的能力。在这里，我们描述了一种使用骨髓来源的树突状细胞从胸腺、脾脏或肝脏分离的单核细胞中扩增小鼠不变NKT（iNKT）细胞系的方法。这些iNKT细胞系可用于研究其共信号需求、细胞因子谱和细胞毒性功能，这将极大地增进我们对iNKT细胞生物学的了解。
