Flow Cytometric Evaluation of Surface CD56 Expression on Activated Natural Killer Cells as Functional Marker

Surface CD56 is the most important cell marker for defining NK cells. However, the relationship between the expression of surface CD56 and NK cell activity has not yet been elucidated in detail. Thirteen healthy volunteers were enrolled in the present study. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were stimulated with rIL-2 or rIL-12 (1, 10, 100 U/mL) for 18 h at 37 ℃. After incubation, surface CD56 expression on NK cells was evaluated using a flow cytometric analysis. A colorimetric-based lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) assay was used for experiments on cytotoxicity. IFN-γmRNA gene expression was quantified by real-time PCR. The expression level of surface CD56 on NK cells, cytotoxicity, and IFN-γmRNA gene expression were significantly increased by the rIL-2 and rIL-12 stimulations. In addition, a positive correlation was found between surface CD56 expression and cytotoxic activity or IFN-γmRNA gene expression. We revealed that the quantification of surface CD56 expression was applicable to the evaluation of cytotoxicity and IFN-γproduction in activated NK cells. These results suggest that the measurement of surface CD56 expression represent an easy and rapidly reproducible technique to evaluate the activated state of NK cells and monitor NK cell activity in immunotherapy.

内容要旨・審査要旨・論文本文の公開:
内容要旨 : LID201611141022.pdf
審査要旨 : LID201611141023.pdf
論文本文 : LID201611141024.pdf
本論文は，著者Wataru Oboshiの学位論文として提出され，学位審査・授与の対象となっている。