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Updated: May 5, 2026

Measurement of Natural Killer Cell-Mediated Cytotoxicity and Migration in the Context of Hepatic Tumor Cells
Published on: February 22, 2020
Subsets of human natural killer cells and their regulatory effects
Binqing Fu1, Zhigang Tian, Haiming Wei
1Institute of Immunology, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China; Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, Hefei, China.
Abstract:
Human natural killer (NK) cells have distinct functions as NK(tolerant) , NK(cytotoxic) and NK(regulatory) cells and can be divided into different subsets based on the relative expression of the surface markers CD27 and CD11b. CD27⁺ NK cells, which are abundant cytokine producers, are numerically in the minority in human peripheral blood but constitute the large population of NK cells in cord blood, spleen, tonsil and decidua tissues. Recent data suggest that these NK cells may have immunoregulatory properties under certain conditions. In this review, we will focus on these new NK cell subsets and discuss how regulatory NK cells may serve as rheostats or sentinels in controlling inflammation and maintaining immune homeostasis in various organs.
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