Kimber I, Moore M
Scand J Immunol. 1983 Jan;17(1):29-36. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3083.1983.tb00762.x.
Lymphocytes isolated from human tonsils are capable of lysing cells of the natural killer (NK)-susceptible line K562. Although weak compared with that of autochthonous peripheral lymphocytes, cytotoxicity is invariably manifest at high effector-to-target ratios. Like peripheral NK cells, tonsillar cytotoxic lymphocytes possess a low buoyant density, which makes possible their partial enrichment from non-cytotoxic cells by centrifugation on discontinuous Percoll gradients. However, examination of cytotoxic fractions indicates that, unlike blood lymphocyte-mediated cytotoxicity, effector function is not associated with the presence of large granular lymphocytes. Furthermore, a functional distinction from classical NK cells is apparent since, although tonsillar cytotoxicity is significantly enhanced after exposure to supernatants from polyclonally activated allogeneic tonsils, pretreatment with lymphoblastoid (Namalva) interferon (IFN-alpha) at doses shown to potentiate maximally the cytotoxicity of peripheral blood lymphocytes fails to influence reactivity. These data provide preliminary evidence for the existence of, at least limited, heterogeneity among human NK cells.
从人扁桃体分离出的淋巴细胞能够裂解自然杀伤（NK）敏感细胞系K562的细胞。尽管与自身外周淋巴细胞相比活性较弱，但在高效应细胞与靶细胞比例下，细胞毒性总是会表现出来。与外周NK细胞一样，扁桃体细胞毒性淋巴细胞具有较低的浮力密度，这使得通过在不连续的Percoll梯度上离心，有可能从非细胞毒性细胞中部分富集它们。然而，对细胞毒性组分的检测表明，与血液淋巴细胞介导的细胞毒性不同，效应器功能与大颗粒淋巴细胞的存在无关。此外，与经典NK细胞的功能区别很明显，因为尽管在暴露于多克隆激活的同种异体扁桃体的上清液后，扁桃体细胞毒性显著增强，但用已证明能最大程度增强外周血淋巴细胞细胞毒性的剂量的淋巴母细胞样（Namalva）干扰素（IFN-α）预处理却未能影响反应性。这些数据为人类NK细胞中至少存在有限的异质性提供了初步证据。
