Analysis of the activating receptors and cytolytic function of human natural killer cells undergoing in vivo differentiation after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation

Patients undergoing allogeneic bone marrow transplantation offer a unique system to analyze NK cell development in vivo. We analyzed NK cells from 23 such patients to assess the acquisition of activating receptors. Four patients displayed an immature NK cell surface phenotype at engraftment, as their cells were CD16^-KIR^- and NKG2D^- but expressed low levels of NKp46, NKp30, 2B4 and NKG2A. These NK cells had particularly low cytolytic activity against the HLA-class-I^- melanoma F01 cell line and the 721-221 EBV-infected B cell line. Moreover, cytoxicity was inhibited upon mAb-mediated crosslinking of 2B4. Analysis of NK cells at day 30 after bone marrow transplantation revealed the occurrence of both phenotypic and functional maturation. These data are in agreement with a previous in vitro study showing that immature NK cell precursors express CD16, NKG2D and KIR only at a late stage of differentiation and also express inhibitory 2B4. Our present study allows a better understanding of the NK cell differentiation in vivo.