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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Mar 9.
Published in final edited form as: J Immunother. 2015 Jan;38(1):24–36. doi: 10.1097/CJI.0000000000000059

Figure 7. K562-mb15-41BBL-stimulated NK cells are sensitive to TGFβ induced suppression.

Figure 7

A. Stimulation of fresh whole PBMC obtained on protocol days 7, 9 and 14 (subjects 7 and 8) with irradiated K562-mb15-41BBL cells resulted in a 3.0 – 4.9 fold increase in NK cells after 5 days of culture. Lower NK cell expansion was observed in replicate cultures in which 5ng/mL recombinant human TGFβ was added. B. TGFβ cultures had significantly lower IFNγ production compared to vehicle cultures. C. Cell surface expression of NKG2D, DNAM1, NKp30, and NKp46 were also reduced after TGFβ treatment. Solid lines are vehicle, dashed lines are TGFβ, thin lines are isotype control. One representative example of 6 experiments is shown. D. Cytolytic activity was diminished in NK from TGFβ cultures. E. Phosphorylation of SMAD3 was observed in highly purified NK cells from the pre-NK infusion apheresis product (resting, RNK) and expanded NK cells treated with TGFβ, but not in expanded NK cells treated with vehicle (cells were obtained from subject 7). ENK, expanded NK.