Delineation of a novel mouse NK cell precursor population: developmental origin and functional contributions

• Antragstellerin: Dr. Claudia Luther
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Immunologie
• Förderung: Förderung von 2008 bis 2010
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 64182250

Natural killer cells are lymphocytes of the innate immune system that play an essential role in the eradication of virus infected and tumour cells. Given an increasing interest for protective therapeutic strategies it is of considerable interest to understand the pathways that lead to mature NK cells. It was believed that NK cells only develop in the bone marrow (BM). Current research suggests that NK progenitors can migrate to peripheral organs for their final maturation into NK cells. We have recently found a novel cell population in the BM and lymph nodes (LN) of C57/BL6 mice that expresses surface CD49b but is negative for other mature NK cell markers including NK1.1 and CD122. This novel cell population acquires phenotypic and functional NK cell properties under conditions that favour NK cell development in vitro. The lack of surface CD122 (β-chain of IL2R/IL-15R) expression makes this cell type different from conventional NK progenitors as this receptor is essential for NK cell development. We hypothesize that we found a novel NK progenitor that migrates from the BM to the LN for final differentiation into unique subsets of mature NK cells. This project is aimed to study the in vivo developmental pathway and biological role of this novel NK progenitor population and NK cells derived from them.

• DFG-Verfahren: Forschungsstipendien
• Internationaler Bezug: Kanada
• Gastgeber: Professor Dr. Fumio Takei