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Dissecting Innate Immune Signaling in Viral Evasion of Cytokine Production
Published on: March 2, 2014
Viral Evasion of Natural Killer Cell Activation
Yi Ma1, Xiaojuan Li2, Ersheng Kuang3,4
1Institute of Human Virology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-Sen University, No. 74, Zhongshan 2nd Road, Guangzhou 510080, China. mayi3@mail2.sysu.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Natural killer (NK) cells play a key role in antiviral innate defenses because of their abilities to kill infected cells and secrete regulatory cytokines. Additionally, NK cells exhibit adaptive memory-like antigen-specific responses, which represent a novel antiviral NK cell defense mechanism. Viruses have evolved various strategies to evade the recognition and destruction by NK cells through the downregulation of the NK cell activating receptors. Here, we review the recent findings on viral evasion of NK cells via the impairment of NK cell-activating receptors and ligands, which provide new insights on the relationship between NK cells and viral actions during persistent viral infections.
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