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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Jun 10.
Published in final edited form as: Bone Marrow Transplant. 2018 May 24;53(12):1498–1507. doi: 10.1038/s41409-018-0218-1

Figure 2. NK-cell alloreactivity mediating GvL after HCT.

Figure 2.

A) NK-cell alloreactivity based on missing self-HLA. In HLA-mismatched HCT, educated donor NK cells stimulated by activating ligands, such as NKG2D ligand, are not inhibited from killing the target leukemia cell due to the lack of self-HLA ligand on the target cell. B) NK-cell alloreactivity based on missing ligand. In HLA-matched HCT, uneducated NK cells bearing KIR for which the patient lacks cognate HLA ligand can become activated under inflammatory conditions and can recognize and kill leukemic targets. C) NK-cell alloreactivity due to minimized inhibition and maximized activation. In HLA-matched HCT, educated donor NK-cells may experience less inhibition if the KIR-HLA interaction is characterized by low avidity. Heightened NK activity may occur if the donor NK cell expresses activating KIR.