Isolation of Innate Lymphoid Cells from Murine Intestinal Lamina Propria

Natural killer (NK) cells are innate cytotoxic immune cells essential for mediating first-line defense against various environmental antigens. With the discoveries of other subsets of innate lymphocytes over the last decade, NK cells are categorized as innate lymphoid cells (ILC) and as the innate counterparts of cytotoxic T cells. Besides NK cells, ILCs are classified into three groups distinguished by their dependence on distinct transcription factors for development and unique effector functions. Subsets of ILCs share many surface proteins that, however, have initially been identified as NK cell markers, making them hard to be distinguished for detailed investigations. Here, we describe a method to identify and individually isolate subsets of innate lymphoid cells from gut lamina propria using cell surface markers.