TGF-β affects development and differentiation of human natural killer cell subsets

✍ Scribed by David S. J. Allan; Basya Rybalov; Génève Awong; Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker; Hernan D. Kopcow; James R. Carlyle; Jack L. Strominger

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 370 KB
• Volume: 40
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0014-2980
• DOI: 10.1002/eji.200939910

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Human peripheral blood NK cells may be divided into two main subsets: CD56^bright^CD16^−^ and CD56^dim^CD16^+^. Since TGF‐β is known to influence the development of many leukocyte lineages, its effects on NK cell differentiation either from human CD34^+^Lin^−^ hematopoietic progenitor/stem cells in vitro or from peripheral blood NK cells were investigated. TGF‐β represses development of NK cells from CD34^+^ progenitors and inhibits differentiation of CD16^+^ NK cells. Moreover, TGF‐β also results in conversion of a minor fraction of CD56^bright^CD16^+^ cells found in peripheral blood into CD56^bright^CD16^−^ cells, highlighting a possible role of the former as a developmental intermediate and of TGF‐β in influencing the genesis of NK subsets found in blood.