Cloning Human Natural Killer Cells

Our understanding of the phenotypical and functional heterogeneity of human natural killer (NK) cells has greatly advanced over the past few years. This advancement has been greatly helped by the development of culture conditions for clonal proliferation of NK cells. Analysis of human NK cell clones has led to the original observation that different NK cell clones recognize distinct major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I specificities. This has prompted the production of monoclonal antibodies directed to NK cell surface antigens clonally distributed, and, ultimately, the biochemical and molecular definition of the NK cell surface glycoproteins functioning as MHC class I receptors.