Figure 2.

Subgroup and receptor expression of donor NK cells affected NK degranulation toward activated T cells associated with aGVHD. (A) Representative gating strategy. CD56^dim and CD56^bright NK cells were gated and subsets were defined based on the expression of NKG2A, the percentage of CD107a positive cells was analyzed on each subset of NK cells. (B) CD107a expression in CD56^dim and CD56^bright NK cells (n = 4), (C) CD107a expression in NKG2A⁻ and NKG2A⁺ subgroups (n = 4), (D) NK cells were pretreated with neutralizing antibodies (or relevant isotype-matched Ig controls) before degranulation assay (n = 4). (E) Levels of donor NK degranulation toward activated T cells were significantly lower in the aGVHD group than in the non-aGVHD group (P = 0.001, n = 98). Percentage of CD56^dim and CD56^bright NK cells (F), NKG2A⁺ NK cells (G) in allografts from the aGVHD and non-aGVHD groups (n = 98). MFI of CD226 (H); NKG2D (I) and NKP46 (J) of NK cells in allografts from aGVHD and non-aGVHD groups (n = 98). All calculated averages were defined as the parametric mean ± SD. Student's t-tests or two-way ANOVA analyses were used to compare the mean among groups.