Figure 1.

NK cells and adaptive immunity. (A) NK cells can develop memory-like attributes in response to infection (left) or cytokine stimulation (right). (B) NK cells have been shown to regulate adaptive immunity by targeting dendritic cells (left) that can change the quality of the T cell response and T follicular helper cells (right) that can regulate B cell maturation (somatic hypermutation) and function. (C) Therapeutic manipulation of NK cell function using soluble NK cell receptors that target tumor or viral infected cells to improve NK cell targeting (top left) or monoclonal antibodies that block or stimulate NK cell receptors (top right) to modulate NK cell function are under current development. Vaccine components such as adjuvants (bottom) could also be utilized to generate CIML NK cells in vivo with a vaccine.