Hypertonic and vibrational modification of K562 feeder cells enhances natural killer cell activation

초록

NK cells are cells responsible for our body's innate immunity and show non-specific cell killing activity without antigen recognition from antigen presenting cells in secondary lymphoid organs. However, there are obstacles to its clinical application as a cell therapy cell types due to the difficulty in proliferating NK cells ex vivo and its relatively weak cell killing ability compared to T cells. To overcome these obstacles, attempts are being made to use feeder cells derived from various tissues, but it is necessary to find a safer and simpler method than previous studies. We delivered hypertonic or vibrational stimulus to K562 feeder cells as extracellular stress to activate NK cells more effectively than normal feeder cells. K562 feeder cells exposed to hypertonic or vibrational stimulus showed increased expression of NKG2D ligands MICA and MICB, and increased outflow of Toll-like receptor ligands DAMPs. Additionally, when co-cultured with NK cells, it was confirmed that stress-enhanced K562 feeder cells modified by exposure to extracellular stress promoted NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity and NK cell cluster formation. In conclusion, by delivering extracellular stress such as vibrational and hypertonic stimuli to the K562 feeder cells, we successfully created the stress-enhanced K562 feeder cells, which can effectively activate NK cells.

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