The Role of NK Cells in Health and Diseases

A special issue of Biomedicines (ISSN 2227-9059). This special issue belongs to the section "Cancer Biology and Oncology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 January 2025 | Viewed by 382

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
School of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton SO16 6YD, UK
Interests: NK cell activation against haematological malignancies

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Natural killer (NK) cells possess the ability to rapidly lyse virally infected and tumour cells and promote the anti-cancer activity of other immune cell types, including macrophages, CD8+ T cells and dendritic cells. Furthermore, the development of NK cell-based therapeutics is an area of intense pre-clinical and clinical research. Importantly for their utilisation in patients, NK cell therapies are not associated with the severe toxicities that can be associated with T cell-based therapies.

Increased knowledge of the role of NK cells in health and disease will provide new avenues for research and allow for improved utilisation against pathogens and tumour cells in the clinical setting. In the following Special Issue, we invite investigators to contribute original research as well as review articles that address recent advances in NK cell function with regard to health and disease. We welcome authors to submit manuscripts that provide novel insights into NK cell biology and therapeutic strategies including CAR-NK cells, cytokines, tumour-targeting antibodies, NK cell engagers and checkpoint inhibitors.

Dr. Matthew Blunt
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • NK cells
  • lymphoma
  • multiple myeloma
  • CLL
  • AML
  • leukaemia
  • immunotherapy

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

15 pages, 1124 KiB  
Review
NK Cells in the Lymph Nodes and Their Role in Anti-Tumour Immunity
by Lara V. Graham, Salim I. Khakoo and Matthew D. Blunt
Biomedicines 2024, 12(8), 1667; https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines12081667 (registering DOI) - 25 Jul 2024
Viewed by 145
Abstract
The lymph nodes are vital to enable adaptive immune responses to infection. Natural killer (NK) cells are cytotoxic lymphocytes that directly kill cancer cells and modulate the activation of other immune cells during anti-tumour immune response. NK cells in the lymph nodes are [...] Read more.
The lymph nodes are vital to enable adaptive immune responses to infection. Natural killer (NK) cells are cytotoxic lymphocytes that directly kill cancer cells and modulate the activation of other immune cells during anti-tumour immune response. NK cells in the lymph nodes are involved in the regulation of T-cell and B-cell populations and the clearance of viral infections. In solid tumours, lymph nodes are a frequent site of metastasis and immune cell priming, whilst in haematological malignancies, tumour cells can proliferate in the lymph nodes. Thus, lymph nodes are an important site in anti-tumour immunity and therapy resistance. It is therefore crucial to identify strategies to increase recruitment and overcome suppression of NK cells in the lymph node microenvironment to improve tumour clearance. In this review, we summarise the literature interrogating NK cell phenotype and function in the lymph nodes in the context of infection and cancer and evaluate both current and potential strategies to mobilise and activate NK cells within the lymph nodes of cancer patients. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Role of NK Cells in Health and Diseases)
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