Cargando…

Contributions of natural killer cells to the immune response against Plasmodium

Natural killer (NK) cells are important innate effector cells that are well described in their ability to kill virally-infected cells and tumors. However, there is increasing appreciation for the role of NK cells in the control of other pathogens, including intracellular parasites such as Plasmodium...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Burrack, Kristina S., Hart, Geoffrey T., Hamilton, Sara E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6751859/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31533835
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12936-019-2953-1
_version_ 1783452700204072960
author Burrack, Kristina S.
Hart, Geoffrey T.
Hamilton, Sara E.
author_facet Burrack, Kristina S.
Hart, Geoffrey T.
Hamilton, Sara E.
author_sort Burrack, Kristina S.
collection PubMed
description Natural killer (NK) cells are important innate effector cells that are well described in their ability to kill virally-infected cells and tumors. However, there is increasing appreciation for the role of NK cells in the control of other pathogens, including intracellular parasites such as Plasmodium, the cause of malaria. NK cells may be beneficial during the early phase of Plasmodium infection—prior to the activation and expansion of antigen-specific T cells—through cooperation with myeloid cells to produce inflammatory cytokines like IFNγ. Recent work has defined how Plasmodium can activate NK cells to respond with natural cytotoxicity, and inhibit the growth of parasites via antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity mechanisms (ADCC). A specialized subset of adaptive NK cells that are negative for the Fc receptor γ chain have enhanced ADCC function and correlate with protection from malaria. Additionally, production of the regulatory cytokine IL-10 by NK cells prevents overt pathology and death during experimental cerebral malaria. Now that conditional NK cell mouse models have been developed, previous studies need to be reevaluated in the context of what is now known about other immune populations with similarity to NK cells (i.e., NKT cells and type I innate lymphoid cells). This brief review summarizes recent findings which support the potentially beneficial roles of NK cells during Plasmodium infection in mice and humans. Also highlighted are how the actions of NK cells can be explored using new experimental strategies, and the potential to harness NK cell function in vaccination regimens.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6751859
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-67518592019-09-23 Contributions of natural killer cells to the immune response against Plasmodium Burrack, Kristina S. Hart, Geoffrey T. Hamilton, Sara E. Malar J Review Natural killer (NK) cells are important innate effector cells that are well described in their ability to kill virally-infected cells and tumors. However, there is increasing appreciation for the role of NK cells in the control of other pathogens, including intracellular parasites such as Plasmodium, the cause of malaria. NK cells may be beneficial during the early phase of Plasmodium infection—prior to the activation and expansion of antigen-specific T cells—through cooperation with myeloid cells to produce inflammatory cytokines like IFNγ. Recent work has defined how Plasmodium can activate NK cells to respond with natural cytotoxicity, and inhibit the growth of parasites via antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity mechanisms (ADCC). A specialized subset of adaptive NK cells that are negative for the Fc receptor γ chain have enhanced ADCC function and correlate with protection from malaria. Additionally, production of the regulatory cytokine IL-10 by NK cells prevents overt pathology and death during experimental cerebral malaria. Now that conditional NK cell mouse models have been developed, previous studies need to be reevaluated in the context of what is now known about other immune populations with similarity to NK cells (i.e., NKT cells and type I innate lymphoid cells). This brief review summarizes recent findings which support the potentially beneficial roles of NK cells during Plasmodium infection in mice and humans. Also highlighted are how the actions of NK cells can be explored using new experimental strategies, and the potential to harness NK cell function in vaccination regimens. BioMed Central 2019-09-18 /pmc/articles/PMC6751859/ /pubmed/31533835 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12936-019-2953-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Review
Burrack, Kristina S.
Hart, Geoffrey T.
Hamilton, Sara E.
Contributions of natural killer cells to the immune response against Plasmodium
title Contributions of natural killer cells to the immune response against Plasmodium
title_full Contributions of natural killer cells to the immune response against Plasmodium
title_fullStr Contributions of natural killer cells to the immune response against Plasmodium
title_full_unstemmed Contributions of natural killer cells to the immune response against Plasmodium
title_short Contributions of natural killer cells to the immune response against Plasmodium
title_sort contributions of natural killer cells to the immune response against plasmodium
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6751859/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31533835
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12936-019-2953-1
work_keys_str_mv AT burrackkristinas contributionsofnaturalkillercellstotheimmuneresponseagainstplasmodium
AT hartgeoffreyt contributionsofnaturalkillercellstotheimmuneresponseagainstplasmodium
AT hamiltonsarae contributionsofnaturalkillercellstotheimmuneresponseagainstplasmodium