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0:00
Hello. My name is Joseph Sun
and I'm in the
Immunology program at
Memorial Sloan Kettering
Cancer Center in New York.
Today, I'll be speaking about
the epigenetic control
of antiviral NK cells.
0:17
In slide number two,
I'm highlighting the
adaptive NK cell response
against cytomegalovirus.
Here over the past few decades,
even though NK cells have been
identified as cells of
the innate immune system,
they have been shown to
possess adaptive features.
I'm going to highlight some
of those in this cartoon.
The NK cell in purple
contains an antigen-specific
receptor Ly49H,
which recognizes an MCMV-encoded
glycoprotein, m157, on the
surface of infected cells.
Through this antigen
specificity,
NK cells can undergo a
profound proliferation
that then resolves
and contracts into
a long-lived memory cell pool
that can then be recalled.
This is what we showed
over a decade ago
now that can happen with
a mouse cytomegalovirus
and we know that other
groups have shown that
this can happen with
human cytomegalovirus.
1:27
Now on the next slide,
I'm highlighting
the importance of
NK cells in defending us
against viral infections.
In this study from the
late Christine Biron,
now from many decades ago,
she identified the first
case where an individual had
normal T and B cell numbers
but specifically
lacked NK cells.
You can see from this
New England Journal
of Medicine article
that this individual suffered
from severe herpes
virus infections,
including, CMV, chickenpox and
various other viruses
that most of us
healthy individuals
are able to control.
This is one of the
early studies that
highlights the
importance of NK cells
and how detrimental it can
be if humans lack NK cells.
In subsequent decades,
various other
immunodeficiencies or
NK cell deficiencies
have been identified
and almost all of them
correlate with severe
herpes virus infections.
