Role of natural killer cells in intraocular melanoma metastasis.

The authors studied the role of natural killer (NK) cells in spontaneous metastasis of murine intraocular melanoma by transplanting murine B16 melanoma cells into the anterior chamber of the eye in syngeneic C57BL/6 mice and determining the number of metastatic lung tumor colonies after 40 days. Depletion of NK activity by anti-asialo GM1 serum dramatically enhanced metastasis and augmentation of NK activity by interferon inhibited it. The strong correlation between host NK activity and intraocular melanoma metastasis indicated that NK cells have an important role in spontaneous metastasis of intraocular melanoma.