Laboratory of Molecular Immunology and Immunotherapy, Blood Research Institute, Versiti, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
Methods Mol Biol. 2022;2463:195-204. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-2160-8_14.
Immunological memory is a fundamental feature of the adaptive immune system that protects the host from recurrent infections from pathogens. Natural killer (NK) cells are a predominant member of the innate immune system that lack clonotypic receptors, which are essential for memory formation. However, evidence demonstrates that a unique subpopulation of NK cells develops adaptive-like features using germline-encoded receptors. Recent studies have shown that infection of cytomegalovirus (CMV) leads to clonal expansion of NKG2C and Ly49H NK cells, in humans and mouse, respectively. These activation receptors have the capability to recognize CMV-encoded proteins and facilitate a recall response upon reinfection. Although NK cells do not rearrange genes encoding their activating receptors as seen in B and T cells, they possess a selective process to generate memory features and a long-lived progeny. Here, we describe an established in vivo protocol for infecting mice with mouse cytomegalovirus (MCMV) to study an adaptive NK cell response.
免疫记忆是适应性免疫系统的一个基本特征，它可以保护宿主免受病原体的反复感染。自然杀伤 (NK) 细胞是先天免疫系统的主要成员，它们缺乏克隆受体，而克隆受体对于记忆的形成至关重要。然而，有证据表明，一种独特的 NK 细胞亚群利用胚系编码的受体发展出类似适应性的特征。最近的研究表明，巨细胞病毒 (CMV) 的感染导致人类和小鼠的 NKG2C 和 Ly49H NK 细胞的克隆扩增。这些激活受体能够识别 CMV 编码的蛋白质，并在再次感染时促进回忆反应。尽管 NK 细胞不像 B 和 T 细胞那样重排编码其激活受体的基因，但它们具有选择性地产生记忆特征和长寿后代的过程。在这里，我们描述了一种用小鼠巨细胞病毒 (MCMV) 感染小鼠的既定体内方案，以研究适应性 NK 细胞反应。
