Morphology and function of ganglio-N-tetraosylceramide-positive lymphocyte mediators of natural killer activity.
More than 90% of nylon wool-passed spleen cells from nude mice reacted with ganglio-N-tetraosylceramide (asialo GM1) which eliminated mouse natural killer (NK) cell activity in the presence of complement. The successful enrichment of asialo GM1-positive (asialo GM1+) cells made possible the demonstration that the number of asialo GM1+ cells was correlated with NK cell activity as well as with binding frequency to YAC-1 target cells. Morphologically, by light and immunoelectron microscopic examinations, the enriched asialo GM1+ cells were composed of 90% lymphocytes and 10% large cells with the characteristics of monocytes. However, the asialo GM1+ lymphocytes (but not the monocytes) bound to the target cells and gave rise to the asialo GM1+ monocytes were sometimes observed to bind to target cells, cytolytic features of the target cells were not demonstrated. These results strongly suggest that asialo GM1+ lymphocytes are essential for NK cytolysis by directly binding to target cells.
D000818:Animals; D005677:G(M1) Ganglioside; D006028:Glycosphingolipids / Q000378:metabolism*; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C
D006028:Glycosphingolipids; D005677:G(M1) Ganglioside; C018835:asialo GM1 ganglioside