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In vivo developmental stages in murine natural killer cell maturation

Nature Immunology volume 3, pages 523–528 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

Natural killer (NK) cells develop in the bone marrow, but their in vivo stages of maturation, expansion and acquisition of receptors that guide target cell specificity are not well defined. We describe here such stages of development. We also show that developing NK cells actively proliferate at a phenotypically distinguishable immature stage after they have acquired expression of Ly49 and CD94-NKG2 receptors. These studies provide a developmental framework for NK cell maturation in vivo and suggest the possible involvement of the Ly49 and CD94-NKG2 receptors themselves in modulating expansion of NK cell populations with a given NK cell receptor repertoire.

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Figure 1: Maturation of NK cells accompanied by up-regulation of Mac-1 expression.
Figure 2: Mac-1lo NK cells are precursors of Mac-1hi NK cells and display a distinctive phenotype.
Figure 3: Ordered expression of integrins on developing NK cells.
Figure 4: Developing NK cells actively proliferate at a Mac-1lo CD43lo α2hi stage in BM.
Figure 5: Developing NK cells acquire CD94-NKG2 and Ly49 receptors at phenotypically distinctive stages.
Figure 6: Developing NK cells acquire CD94-NKG2 and Ly49 receptors before the major expansion stage.

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Acknowledgements

Supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation and NIH grants to W. M. Y. We thank M. Colonna and E. Ho for critical reading of this manuscript and Y.-J. Song, D. Higuchi, K. Marlotte, and J. Laurent for technical support.

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  1. Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Rheumatology Division, Department of Internal Medicine, Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, 63110, MO, USA

    Sungjin Kim, Koho Iizuka, Hyun-Seok P. Kang, Ayotunde Dokun, Anthony R. French, Suellen Greco & Wayne M. Yokoyama

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Correspondence to Wayne M. Yokoyama.

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Kim, S., Iizuka, K., Kang, HS. et al. In vivo developmental stages in murine natural killer cell maturation. Nat Immunol 3, 523–528 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni796

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