title: Human natural killer cell activating receptors.
abstract: Natural killer (NK) cells were poorly characterized until 10 years ago and few molecules expressed on their cell surface were known. Now the situation has changed dramatically, since a plethora of receptors characterized by opposite functions have been functionally and molecularly defined. NK cells express clonally distributed inhibitory receptors specific for different groups of HLA class I alleles, thus protecting normal cells from NK-mediated lysis. On the contrary, various activating receptors are involved in triggering of NK-mediated natural cytotoxicity. Their engagement induces human NK cells to kill target cells that are either HLA class I-negative or -deficient. Here a brief description of the activating receptors and coreceptor and of their ligand(s) is given.
authors.affiliation: Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca sul Cancro, Laboratorio di Immunologia, IST/CBA, L.go R. Benzi, 10, 16132, Genova, Italy. biassoni@cba.unige.it
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Biassoni
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cantoni
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Falco
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pende
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Millo
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Moretta
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bottino
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Moretta
mesh_terms: D003602:Cytotoxicity, Immunologic; D006801:Humans; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural / Q000276:immunology*; D011971:Receptors, Immunologic / Q000276:immunology*; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D011971:Receptors, Immunologic