Natural killer (NK) cells are lymphocytes of the innate immune system that play a major role in the destruction of both tumours and virally-infected cells. The cytotoxicity of NK cells is tightly controlled by signals received through activating and inhibitory receptors. NK cells express a variety of inhibitory receptors such as Ly49 receptors. Ly49 receptors bind to class I MHC molecules that expressed on normal cells. Using Ly49-deficient (NKCKD) mice we show that Ly49-KD NK cells successfully recognize and kill influenza virus-infected cells and that NKCKD mice exhibit better survival than wild-type mice. Moreover, influenza virus infection has a propensity to upregulate cell surface expression of MHC-I on murine lung epithelial cells in vivo. Significantly, we demonstrate increased lung damage of WT-mice versus NKCKD mice after influenza virus infection as determined by histological analyses. This data indicated that absence of Ly49 inhibitory NK receptors greatly enhances survival of infected mice.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/23192 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Mahmoud, Ahmad |
| Contributors | Makrigiannis, Andrew |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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