Antitumor cytotoxicity mediated by ligand-activated human V alpha24 NKT cells.

作者：Tetsu Kawano, Toshinori Nakayama, Noriaki Kamada, Yukihiro Kaneko, Michishige Harada, Nao Ogura, Yasunori Akutsu, Shinichiro Motohashi, Toshihiko Iizasa, Hironori Endo, Takehiko Fujisawa, Hiroshi Shinkai, Masaru Taniguchi · 发表于：PubMed · 年份：1999 · 被引用次数：260 · 研究领域：Immune Cell Function and Interaction、T-cell and B-cell Immunology、Immunotherapy and Immune Responses

Human V alpha24 NKT cells bearing an invariant V alpha24J alphaQ antigen receptor, the counterpart of the murine V alpha14 NKT cells, are activated by the specific ligand, alpha-galactosylceramide (alpha-GalCer) in a CD1d-dependent manner. Here, we demonstrate that the alpha-GalCer-activated V alpha24 NKT cells exert a potent perforin-dependent cytotoxic activity against a wide variety of human tumor cell lines. In addition, we demonstrate that V alpha24 NKT cells and dendritic cells (DCs) from melanoma patients are functionally normal, even in the tumor-bearing status. The potential use of alpha-GalCer-activated V alpha24 NKT cells and/or DCs from patients for cancer immunotherapy is discussed.