Abstract
Natural killer cells (NK cells) play an important role in innate immunity. NK cells recognize self and nonself depending on the balance of activating receptors and inhibitory receptors. After binding to their ligands, NK cell receptors trigger subsequent signaling conduction and then determine whether NK is activated or inhibited. Furthermore, NK cell response includes cytotoxicity and cytokine release, which is tightly related to the activation of NK cell-activating receptors and the inhibition of inhibitory receptors on the surfaces of NK cells. The expression and function of NK cell surface receptors also alter in virus infection, tumor, and autoimmune diseases and influence the occurrence and development of diseases. So, it is important to understand the mechanism of recognition between NK receptors and their ligands in pathological conditions and the signaling pathways of NK cell receptors. This review mainly summarizes the research progress on NK cell surface receptors and their signal pathways.
Highlights
NK cells are crucial immune cells and enormously contribute to the innate immunity
Further research showed that the tyrosine residue of the mutated immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motifs (ITIMs) motif did not thoroughly abrogate the function of KIR2DL4, which may be related to Src homology region 2containing protein tyrosine phosphatase-2 (SHP-2) binding to the mutated ITIMs and nonphosphorylated ITIMs of KIR2DL4 on NK cells [15]
These results suggest that killer cell immunoglobulin receptors (KIRs) inhibitory signal transduction is partially independent of Src homology region 2-containing protein tyrosine phosphatase-1 (SHP-1) or phosphotyrosine
Summary
NK cells are crucial immune cells and enormously contribute to the innate immunity. NK cells can differentiate self from nonself by activating receptors and inhibitory receptors. NK cells exhibit natural cell cytotoxicity and directly destroy tumor cells or virally infected cells. NK cells play crucial roles in regulating various hematopoietic, inflammatory, and immune responses by secreting cytokines and chemokines [1, 2]. It is necessary to understand the function of different surface NK cell receptors and their mechanisms of action. This article will summarize the existing research on NK cell receptors as well as their signaling pathways
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