Abstract
Natural killer (NK) cells are critical immune effector cells in the fight against cancer. As NK cells in cancer patients are highly dysfunctional and reduced in number, adoptive transfer of large numbers of cytolytic NK cells and their potential to induce relevant antitumor responses are widely explored in cancer immunotherapy. Early studies from autologous NK cells have failed to demonstrate significant clinical benefit. In this review, the clinical benefits of adoptively transferred allogeneic NK cells in a transplant and non-transplant setting are compared and discussed in the context of relevant NK cell platforms that are being developed and optimized by various biotech industries with a special focus on augmenting NK cell functions.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Alloimmunity and Transplantation, a section of the journal Frontiers in Immunology
We conclude that adoptive transfer of allogeneic Natural killer (NK) cells in a non-transplant setting is safe and shows early signs of clinical efficacy against hematological and certain solid tumors
Current data are mostly based on Phase I clinical trials, and it is still too early to get an overall picture of NK cell alloreactivity in different kinds of cancer
Summary
Human NK cells are generally categorized by their level of CD56 and CD16 expression into two subsets: CD56brightCD16dim and CD56dimCD16bright NK cells. Most NK cells in the peripheral blood and spleen are CD56dimCD16bright and are cytotoxic against a variety of tumor cells, whereas CD56brightCD16dim NK cells are immune regulatory in function and constitute the majority in secondary lymphoid tissues, producing abundant cytokines but exerting weak cytotoxicity compared to CD56dimCD16bright
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