Molecular uniqueness of resting NK cells

(a) Heat map of genes with the most significant difference in expression in NK cells relative to all other cell populations, presented (as in Fig. 1a) in decreasing order of significance (full list of genes, Supplementary Table 1). (b) Ly49H expression in splenic leukocytes (left; number above bracketed line indicates percent Ly49H+ cells), and expression of NKp46 and TCRγδ by Ly49H+ cells (right; outlined area indicates TCRγδ−NKp46+ cells). (c) Proportion of the 93 NK cell signature genes in a regulated by the transcriptional regulators (encoded by the genes along the horizontal axis) most 'strongly' predicted to do so (significantly linked), presented in decreasing degree of influence (left to right). Data presented are based on the analysis of a minimum of three independent replicates per cell type (a,c) or are representative of three independent experiments (b).

innate and adaptive branches of natural killer cells

Wouldn't you want to be called a natural killer cell? NKC
That's a pretty cool name, but it's also confusing to a lot of people. What does it mean to be a natural killer cell?

Try this for size:

(a) PCA of NK cells, innate-like T cells and adaptive αβ T cell populations (presented as in Fig. 1a). (b) Hierarchical clustering of the NK cell–T cell complex populations, based on Euclidean distances of averaged arrays of a population, with all genes expressed in any of these populations included in the analysis. (c) Overlapping of genes expressed in NK cells (NK), γδ T cell (γδ T) and iNKT cells (CD4+ (iNKT 4+) or CD4− (iNKT 4−)) but not in adaptive αβ T cells (αβ T); these genes met a δ-score threshold of 0.5 (genes unique to resting NK cells, Fig. 3). Color indicates function of molecule encoded: green, effector molecule; purple, surface molecule; blue, transcription factor. (d,e) Frequency of NKR-expressing cells (d) and cells expressing T-bet or Syk (e) among NK cells and innate-like lymphocytes (as in c) relative to their frequency among TCRαβ+ T cells, assessed by flow cytometry (x axis, fluorescence intensity; y axis, percentage of maximum). (f) Abundance of Rbpms mRNA in iNKT cell and γδ T cell populations isolated from thymus or spleen, presented as a normalized microarray. (g) Expression of Spry1, Spry2 and Spry4 by splenic leukocyte populations (above), presented relative to the median expression value of all analyzed populations. Spry3 expression was not above background in any population and is not presented here. Data are representative of two experiments (error bars (d–f), s.e.m.). Data presented are based on the analysis of a minimum of three independent replicates per cell type (a–c).

Get it?

Joseph C. Kim - Academic Search

Joseph C Kim

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Publications: 19 | Citations: 319
Fields: Cardiology, Virology, Biochemistry
View FAQ about top research areas and Fields of study

Collaborated with 79 co-authors from 1996 to 2009 | Cited by 1154 authors

Immunology science

What is immunology? I'm Joseph C Kim and I'm an immunology scientist. Immunology is a branch of biomedical science that covers the study of all aspects of the immune system. When we get sick, our immune system fights for us to get us better. Some people have no immune system.

Immunology science is very complex. We are inventing new drugs for the immune system all the time.

Common memory responses of NK cells and CD8+ T cells

Nature has an interesting figure titled: Common memory responses of NK cells and CD8+ T cells.

From "Molecular definition of the identity and activation of natural killer cells"

Using whole-genome microarray data sets of the Immunological Genome Project, we demonstrate a closer transcriptional relationship between NK cells and T cells than between any other leukocytes, distinguished by their shared expression of genes encoding molecules with similar signaling functions. Whereas resting NK cells are known to share expression of a few genes with cytotoxic CD8+ T cells, our transcriptome-wide analysis demonstrates that the commonalities extend to hundreds of genes, many encoding molecules with unknown functions. Resting NK cells demonstrate a 'preprimed' state compared with naive T cells, which allows NK cells to respond more rapidly to viral infection. Collectively, our data provide a global context for known and previously unknown molecular aspects of NK cell identity and function by delineating the genome-wide repertoire of gene expression of NK cells in various states.

The authors are:

Natalie A Bezman,
Charles C Kim,
Joseph C Sun,
Gundula Min-Oo,
Deborah W Hendricks,
Yosuke Kamimura,
J Adam Best,
Ananda W Goldrath,
Lewis L Lanier
& The Immunological Genome Project Consortium

Nature Immunology 13, 1000–1009 (2012) doi:10.1038/ni.2395

I'm Joseph C Kim and I'm fascinated by immunology.

Nature Immunology

Nature Immunology is a fascinating topic, isn't it? It's also the name of a research journal. You'll find articles like:

Intracellular antibody signaling
Immunoglobulin A production
T cell–T cell synaptic interactions
NKp46+ ILC development
IL-17 production by B cells
Bcl-6 specialization

Nature Immunology is published by the Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

I'm Joseph C Kim and I'm fascinated by immunology.