Evaluation of Blood Cytotoxicity Against Tumor Cells Using a Live-Cell Imaging Platform

Cellular cytotoxicity is an important mechanism of the immune system to clear infections and eliminate tumor cells. Its two main mediators are cytotoxic T lymphocytes and natural killer (NK) cells. In lung cancer, intratumoral NK cells show reduced cytolytic potential and one third of patients do not express HLA-I proteins, which activate NK cells in a process termed "absent self-recognition." In this work, we investigate NK cytotoxicity as a potential oncological biomarker that informs patient status and predicts response to treatment. We describe a simple and rapid test to analyze NK cytotoxicity without the need for large volumes of blood, requiring short processing time and reduced use of both reagents and blood samples, using the IncuCyte live imaging technique.