TY - JOUR
T1 - Uterine natural killer cells
AU - Sojka, Dorothy K.
AU - Yang, Liping
AU - Yokoyama, Wayne M.
N1 - Funding Information:
Work in the Yokoyama lab on uterine NK cells is supported by grant R01-AI140397 from the National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2019 Sojka, Yang and Yokoyama. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Natural killer (NK) cells are members of a rapidly expanding family of innate lymphoid cells (ILCs). While most previously studied NK cells were derived from the mouse spleen and circulate in the blood, recently others and we found tissue-resident NK (trNK) cells in many tissues that resemble group 1 ILCs (ILC1s). During pregnancy, NK cells are the most abundant lymphocytes in the uterus at the maternal-fetal interface and are involved in placental vascular remodeling. Prior studies suggested that these uterine NK (uNK) cells are mostly derived from circulating NK cells. However, the murine virgin uterus contains mostly trNK cells and it has been challenging to determine their contribution to uNK cells in pregnancy as well as other potential function(s) of uNK cells due to the dynamic microenvironment in the pregnant uterus. This review focuses on the origins and functions of the heterogeneous populations of uNK cells during the course of murine pregnancy.
AB - Natural killer (NK) cells are members of a rapidly expanding family of innate lymphoid cells (ILCs). While most previously studied NK cells were derived from the mouse spleen and circulate in the blood, recently others and we found tissue-resident NK (trNK) cells in many tissues that resemble group 1 ILCs (ILC1s). During pregnancy, NK cells are the most abundant lymphocytes in the uterus at the maternal-fetal interface and are involved in placental vascular remodeling. Prior studies suggested that these uterine NK (uNK) cells are mostly derived from circulating NK cells. However, the murine virgin uterus contains mostly trNK cells and it has been challenging to determine their contribution to uNK cells in pregnancy as well as other potential function(s) of uNK cells due to the dynamic microenvironment in the pregnant uterus. This review focuses on the origins and functions of the heterogeneous populations of uNK cells during the course of murine pregnancy.
KW - Conventional natural killer cells
KW - Maternal-fetal interface
KW - Placenta
KW - Pregnancy
KW - Tissue-resident natural killer cells
KW - Uterine innate lymphoid cells
KW - Uterine natural killer cells
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85066477243&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fimmu.2019.00960
DO - 10.3389/fimmu.2019.00960
M3 - Review article
C2 - 31118936
AN - SCOPUS:85066477243
SN - 1664-3224
VL - 10
JO - Frontiers in Immunology
JF - Frontiers in Immunology
IS - MAY
M1 - 960
ER -