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Graft-Versus-Host Disease

Cytolytic activity of NK cell clones against acute childhood precursor-B-cell leukaemia is influenced by HLA class I expression on blasts and the differential KIR phenotype of NK clones

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 43, pages 875–881 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Relapse after allo-SCT in patients with acute leukaemia remains a major problem. A beneficial impact of alloreactive natural killer (NK) cells has been reported for myeloid malignancies, but has been questionable for B-lineage ALL. We analysed lysis of primary paediatric precursor-B-ALL blasts by 285 NK cell clones to investigate whether HLA class I expression on the blasts and phenotypic killer cell Ig-like receptor (KIR) expression on NK cells affect the lytic activity against ALL blasts. Precursor-B-ALL blasts with low HLA-I expression were lysed by a majority (79%) of NK cell clones, whereas those with high HLA-I expression showed low susceptibility to NK clones independent of their KIR expression patterns. NK cell activity against susceptible blasts was regulated by differential surface expression of the three major KIRs (CD158a, CD158b, CD158e). NK clones with none of these three KIRs or a single KIR that recognized no ligand, were not inhibited by the targets and exerted higher lysis (P=<0.0005) in comparison to NK clones expressing KIRs with a ligand on the ALL blasts. In conclusion, the quantity of HLA-I expression on precursor-B-ALL blast regulates overall NK cell susceptibility; in case of reduced HLA expression, differential surface expression of KIRs affects NK cell alloreactivity against those blasts.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A Barbarin-Dorner, L Koschnik for excellent technical assistance, A Velardi, L Ruggeri for helpful advice and D Martin for reviewing the manuscript. LCL with defined HLA-C expression was kindly provided by A Velardi, Perugia, Italy. This study was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Grant no. 2001.048.1 (PL) and SFB685.

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Author notes

  1. T Feuchtinger and M Pfeiffer: The first two authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Paediatric Haematology/Oncology, University Children's Hospital, Tübingen, Germany

    T Feuchtinger, M Pfeiffer, A Pfaffle, H-M Teltschik, M Schumm, R Handgretinger & P Lang

  2. Institute of Transfusion Medicine, Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, Germany

    D Wernet & R Lotfi

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  1. T Feuchtinger
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Correspondence to T Feuchtinger.

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Declaration of commercial interest: All authors have no financial or commercial and personal interest or relationships to disclose with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence or bias their work.

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Feuchtinger, T., Pfeiffer, M., Pfaffle, A. et al. Cytolytic activity of NK cell clones against acute childhood precursor-B-cell leukaemia is influenced by HLA class I expression on blasts and the differential KIR phenotype of NK clones. Bone Marrow Transplant 43, 875–881 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/bmt.2008.398

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