Natural killer cell receptor repertoire is comparable amongst newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia of different French–American–British subtypes, risk categories and chemosensitivities

Abstract

We studied the natural killer (NK) receptor repertoire by flow cytometry for 78 patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and correlated the expression with their biological and clinical characteristics. CD3−CD56+ NK cells constituted a median of 11.68% of the lymphocyte subset. The NK receptors including the killer immunoglobulin-like receptors, natural cytotoxicity receptors and C-type lectin receptors were comparable amongst the various French–American–British (FAB) subtypes and amongst patients in the better, intermediate and poor risk categories. Neither was there any difference in NK receptor repertoire between patients who achieved a remission with induction chemotherapy and those who were chemorefractory, indicating the absence of a prognostic impact of NK receptor repertoire at the time of diagnosis of AML. Compared with NK cells from 16 healthy donors, most of the NK receptors were expressed at a significantly lower level, suggesting a defective NK cell population as a cause or result of AML.