Natural killer cell lines and clones with antigen specificity

摘要

Lymphocytes of NK phenotype were cultured with stimulator cell lines in the presence of growth factor containing medium. The resulting lines and clones derived from these lines expressed CD16 and/or Leu 19, but lacked detectable CD3 or T cell receptor &ggr;/&dgr; complexes on the cell surface. In addition to displaying potent cytolytic activity against K562 erythroleukemia cells (a classical NK target), the vast majority of these lines and clones lysed their specific stimulator cell lines to a significantly greater extent than irrelevant cell lines. These results indicate that some CD3- lymphocytes, phenotypically indistinguishable from NK cells, can recognize and lyse allogeneic targets in a specific manner.