Inhibitory Effect of Natural Killer Cells on Liver Tumor Growth in Mouse Xenograft Model

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Human natural killer (NK) cells are major players in innate immune response. The functions
of these cells as a scavenger of cancer cells are enhanced by cytokines such as interleukin-2 (IL-2), which
play an important role in immune response in both tumors and virally infected cells. Liver cancer has a high
incidence rate and is a major cause of death in Korea. We provide evidence that human NK cells inhibit
tumor growth of the hepatocellular carcinoma cell line SNU-354. NK cells were cultured with human IL-2
for 14 days, yielding an enriched NK cell population containing 35% CD8+cells, 6% CD4+cells, and 51%
CD16+/CD56+ cells. Intravenous injection of NK cells at doses from 2.5 to 10 million cells/mouse was
administered once per week in a nude mouse model that retains human liver tumor induced by implantation
of SNU-354 cells. The results showed that human NK cells were recruited within tumor tissue and inhibited
SNU-354 tumor growth by 32%, 58%, and 65%. The current data suggest the potential for use of NK cellbased
immunotherapy for treatment of human liver cancer.