Extrinsic and intrinsic drivers of natural killer cell clonality

© 2024 The Authors. Immunological Reviews published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd..

Clonal expansion of antigen-specific lymphocytes is the fundamental mechanism enabling potent adaptive immune responses and the generation of immune memory. Accompanied by pronounced epigenetic remodeling, the massive proliferation of individual cells generates a critical mass of effectors for the control of acute infections, as well as a pool of memory cells protecting against future pathogen encounters. Classically associated with the adaptive immune system, recent work has demonstrated that innate immune memory to human cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is stably maintained as large clonal expansions of natural killer (NK) cells, raising questions on the mechanisms for clonal selection and expansion in the absence of re-arranged antigen receptors. Here, we discuss clonal NK cell memory in the context of the mechanisms underlying clonal competition of adaptive lymphocytes and propose alternative selection mechanisms that might decide on the clonal success of their innate counterparts. We propose that the integration of external cues with cell-intrinsic sources of heterogeneity, such as variegated receptor expression, transcriptional states, and somatic variants, compose a bottleneck for clonal selection, contributing to the large size of memory NK cell clones.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2024

Erschienen:

2024

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - year:2024

Enthalten in:

Immunological reviews - (2024) vom: 20. März

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Rückert, Timo [VerfasserIn]
Romagnani, Chiara [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Clonality
Immune memory
Journal Article
Natural killer cells
Review
Viral infection

Anmerkungen:

Date Revised 20.03.2024

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status Publisher

doi:

10.1111/imr.13324

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM369960173