Mowat A M, Tait R C, MacKenzie S, Davies M D, Parrott D M
Clin Exp Immunol. 1983 Apr;52(1):191-8.
Intraepithelial lymphocytes (IEL) are morphologically similar to NK cells in other tissues and we have studied the NK activity of IEL isolated from mouse small intestine. In contrast to spleen NK cells, IEL showed little activity against YAC-1 over 4 h but had high levels of NK activity when the assay was extended to 18 h. IEL from nude mice did not show the enhanced NK activity found in other tissues. IEL were also found to suppress the NK activity of spleen cells and this suppressor function was not mediated by T lymphocytes or macrophages. The results indicate that the intestinal epithelium contains a population of potent NK cells which may represent a type of NK cell different to that found in other tissues. In addition, there are also cells capable of regulating NK cell function in the epithelial layer.
上皮内淋巴细胞（IEL）在形态上与其他组织中的自然杀伤细胞（NK细胞）相似，我们研究了从小鼠小肠分离出的IEL的NK活性。与脾NK细胞不同，IEL在4小时内对YAC-1几乎没有活性，但当检测时间延长至18小时时，其NK活性水平较高。裸鼠的IEL未表现出在其他组织中发现的增强的NK活性。还发现IEL可抑制脾细胞的NK活性，且这种抑制功能不是由T淋巴细胞或巨噬细胞介导的。结果表明，肠上皮含有一群强大的NK细胞，它们可能代表一种与其他组织中发现的NK细胞不同的NK细胞类型。此外，上皮层中也存在能够调节NK细胞功能的细胞。
