Research progress on negative regulation of adaptive immune response by NK cells / 中国免疫学杂志

ABSTRACT

Natural killer ( NK) cells are important innate effector cells and play a vital role in maintaining homeostasis through potent cytotoxic activity and cytokine production. Recent findings show that NK cells can also shape adaptive immune responses by in-fluencing a variety of immune cells. In addition to direct interactions with other immune cells,NK cells can indirectly stimulate or inhibit adaptive immune response via influencing infected cells and pathogen load. Abundant studies have highlighted the positive regulatory functions of NK cells, while their negative regulatory functions have increasingly attracted attention in recent years. Here, we review recent findings on negative regulation of adaptive immune response by NK cells, discussing the involved effector cells and function mechanism,and demonstrate how this negative regulation influences the overall outcome of adaptive immunity in infection and tumor disease.