Spontaneous natural killer cell activity in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia

Endogenous NK activity was measured in ALL patients and compared with child and adult control values. ALL children undergoing maintenance chemotherapy showed significantly lower NK activity than control groups; however, patients off treatment and in remission expressed cytotoxicity within the normal range of the control groups. The expression of the HNK-1 marker in the ALL children was not significantly different from child controls, although ALL patients failed to show the same correlation between cytotoxic activity and HNK-1 expression. The target binding capacity of PBLs from ALL children was significantly greater compared with controls but did not correlate with NK activity. In addition plasma from ALL patients was not inhibitory for NK cytolytic activity, suggesting an innate defect in cytotoxicity mediated by NK cells rather than a plasma inhibitory factor. Patients failing to display NK activity against K562 target cells appeared to mediate killing of measles virus infected (Raji) targets.