PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Juhyun Jin
AU  - Yong-Oon Ahn
AU  - Tae Min Kim
AU  - Bhumsuk Keam
AU  - Dong-Wan Kim
AU  - Dae Seog Heo
TI  - The CD56bright CD62L+ NKG2A+ immature cell subset is dominantly expanded in human cytokine-induced memory-like NK cells
AID  - 10.1101/405134
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 405134
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/09/09/405134.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/09/09/405134.full
AB  - Recent studies have revealed immunological memory of NK cells. Short-term in vitro cytokine stimulation also induces NK cell memory, but heterogeneous cell subsets within the cytokine-induced memory-like (CIML) NK cells has not been elucidated. Here we found that the dominant cell subset in human CIML NK cells are immature CD56bright CD62L+cells, and they were selectively expanded CD56bright CD16- CD62L+ NK cells. Although these cells acquired KIR expression after the cytokine stimulation, sustained NKG2A expression inhibits cytotoxicity against HLA-E+ target cells. In contrast, another checkpoint molecule LAG-3 is induced mainly on KIR+ NKG2C+ minor CIML NK cells. Our findings imply targeting NKG2A and LAG-3 should be considered for CIML NK cell-based immunotherapy.