Figure 9. Lysis of B16 melanoma by hepatic NK cell subsets.

B6 mice were given CpG i.p, their livers were harvested 48 hrs later, a mononuclear cell preparation obtained and labelled with CD5, NK1.1, CD27 and CD11b. Software gates were set on NK cells and the resulting four subsets of CD27 and CD11b dual label were sorted and used in a 4 hr ⁵¹Cr-release assay against B16 melanoma targets. Lytic units were calculated with one lytic unit defined as the number of effector cells needed to effect 30% specific lysis. The values on the X-axis are lytic units per 1×10⁶ effector cells. The lytic potential of the CD27^hi/CD11b^lo subset was statistically significant when compared to the CD27^loCD11b^lo (p = 0.03) and the CD27^loCD11b^hi (p = 0.028) but not when compared to the CD27^hiCD11b^hi subset.