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Updated: Jun 13, 2026

Teasing Out the Interplay Between Natural Killer Cells and Nociceptor Neurons
Published on: June 30, 2022
Peptide antagonism as a mechanism for NK cell activation
Lena Fadda1, Gwenoline Borhis, Parvin Ahmed
1Divisions of Medicine and Cell and Molecular Medicine, Imperial College London, London W2 1PG, United Kingdom.
None:
Inhibition of natural killer (NK) cells is mediated by MHC class I receptors including the killer cell Ig-like receptor (KIR). We demonstrate that HLA-C binding peptides can function as altered peptide ligands for KIR and antagonize the inhibition mediated by KIR2DL2/KIR2DL3. Antagonistic peptides promote clustering of KIR at the interface of effector and target cells, but do not result in inhibition of NK cells. Our data show that, as for T cells, small changes in the peptide content of MHC class I can regulate NK cell activity.
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