Natural Killer Cells Expanded and Preactivated Exhibit Enhanced Antitumor Activity against Different Tumor Cells in Vitro

Document Type : Research Articles

Authors

1 Department of Biochemistry, Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) and Associated Hospitals, New Delhi, India.

2 Multidisciplinary Research Unit (MRU), Maulana Azad Medical College and Associated Hospitals, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi, 110002, India.

3 Department of Gastroinstestinal Surgery G B Pant Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (GIPMER), New Delhi, India.

4 Department of Medical Lab Technology, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Prince Fahd Bin Sultan Research chair, University of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

One of the emerging treatment strategies for cancer particularly for haematological malignancies is natural killer (NK) cell therapy. However, the availability of a best approach to maximize NK cell anticancer potential is still awaited. It is well established that cytokine-induced memory-like NK cells have the potential to differentiate after a short period of preactivation with interleukins-IL-12, IL-15, and IL-18 and exhibit increased responses to cytokine or activating receptor restimulation for weeks to months after preactivation. We demonstrated that NK cells differentiated from CD34+ cells isolated from cord blood show increased antitumor potential in vitro against different cancer cells. Using flow cytometry, we found that NK cells were able to induce apoptosis in cancer cells in vitro. We further analysed surviving gene expression by quantitative real time PCR and reported that NK cells cause down regulation of survivin gene expression in tumor cells. Therefore, NK cell therapy represents a promising immunotherapy for cancers like AML and other haematological malignancies. It concluded that NK cells can be differentiated from CD34+ cells isolated from cord blood ,are able to induce apoptosis and induce increased antitumor potential in vitro against different cancer cells besides cause downregulation of survivin gene expression in tumor cells. Therefore, NK cell therapy represents a promising immunotherapy for different cancer types and haematological malignancies. Furthers studies are necessary to confir