Talmadge J E, Meyers K M, Prieur D J, Starkey J R
Nature. 1980 Apr 17;284(5757):622-4. doi: 10.1038/284622a0.
Although natural killer (NK) cells are thought to give the host a spontaneous resistance against tumours and have been postulated to act in vivo as surveillor cells, definitive data in support of these hypotheses has not been obtained. Recently the beige (bg) mouse, a morphological homologue of the human Chediak-Higashi (CH) syndrome, was shown to be deficient in NK activity. Specifically, spleen cells of bg mice were demonstrated to be incapable of in vitro natural cytotoxicity against tumour cells. We report here that a tumour line, modified to be sensitive to NK cytotoxicity by in vitro culture, demonstrated in vivo an increased growth rate, faster induction time and an increased metastatic capability in bg compared to control mice. This was not found with a tumour line insensitive to NK activity (without in vitro culture). In vivo activation of NK cells in bg and control mice resulted in a decrease in tumour growth rate and metastatic frequency. These results demonstrate that NK cells have an important function in the host's control of tumour growth and metastasis.
尽管自然杀伤（NK）细胞被认为可赋予宿主对肿瘤的自发抵抗力，并且据推测在体内作为监视细胞发挥作用，但尚未获得支持这些假设的确切数据。最近，米色（bg）小鼠是人类切-东（CH）综合征的形态学同源物，被证明NK活性存在缺陷。具体而言，已证明bg小鼠的脾细胞在体外对肿瘤细胞无天然细胞毒性。我们在此报告，通过体外培养使其对NK细胞毒性敏感的肿瘤细胞系，与对照小鼠相比，在bg小鼠体内显示出更高的生长速率、更快的诱导时间和更强的转移能力。而对NK活性不敏感的肿瘤细胞系（未经体外培养）则未出现这种情况。在bg小鼠和对照小鼠体内激活NK细胞会导致肿瘤生长速率和转移频率降低。这些结果表明，NK细胞在宿主控制肿瘤生长和转移中具有重要作用。
