title: Natural killer cell lines in tumor immunotherapy.
abstract: Natural killer (NK) cells are considered to be critical players in anticancer immunity. However, cancers are able to develop mechanisms to escape NK cell attack or to induce defective NK cells. Current NK cell-based cancer immunotherapy is aimed at overcoming NK cell paralysis through several potential approaches, including activating autologous NK cells, expanding allogeneic NK cells, usage of stable allogeneic NK cell lines and genetically modifying fresh NK cells or NK cell lines. The stable allogeneic NK cell line approach is more practical for quality-control and large-scale production. Additionally, genetically modifying NK cell lines by increasing their expression of cytokines and engineering chimeric tumor antigen receptors could improve their specificity and cytotoxicity. In this review, NK cells in tumor immunotherapy are discussed, and a list of therapeutic NK cell lines currently undergoing preclinical and clinical trials of several kinds of tumors are reviewed.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Immunology, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale and School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Yongyan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Zhigang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Tian
mesh_terms: D002460:Cell Line; D055612:Cytokine-Induced Killer Cells / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D016219:Immunotherapy, Adoptive / Q000379:methods*; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural / Q000502:physiology*; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D011946:Receptors, Antigen / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D011946:Receptors, Antigen