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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

qKAT: Quantitative Semi-automated Typing of Killer-cell Immunoglobulin-like Receptor Genes
07:58

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Published on: March 6, 2019

Stimulatory and inhibitory killer Ig-like receptor molecules are expressed and functional on lupus T cells

Dhiman Basu1, Ying Liu, Ailing Wu

  • 1Department of Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.

Journal of Immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950)
|August 14, 2009
PubMed

T cells from lupus patients have hypomethylated DNA and overexpress genes normally suppressed by DNA methylation that contribute to disease pathogenesis. We found that stimulatory and inhibitory killer cell Ig-like receptor (KIR) genes are aberrantly overexpressed on experimentally demethylated T cells. We therefore asked if lupus T cells also overexpress KIR, and if the proteins are functional. T cells from lupus patients were found to overexpress KIR genes, and expression was proportional to disease activity. Abs to the stimulatory molecule KIR2DL4 triggered IFN-gamma release by lupus T cells, and production was proportional to disease activity. Similarly, cross-linking the inhibitory molecule KIR3DL1 prevented the autoreactive macrophage killing that characterizes lupus T cells. These results indicate that aberrant T cell KIR expression may contribute to IFN overproduction and macrophage killing in human lupus, and they suggest that Abs to inhibitory KIR may be a treatment for this disease.

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