Fig. 2.

^AlloHSC-iNKT cells directly target and kill SARS-CoV-2 infected cells. a Schematics showing the engineered 293T-FG, 293T-ACE2-FG, and Calu3-FG cell lines. ACE2 angiotensin converting enzyme 2, Fluc firefly luciferase, EGFP enhanced green fluorescent protein, F2A foot-and-mouth disease virus 2A self-cleavage sequence. b FACS detection of ACE2 on 293T-FG, 293T-ACE2-FG, Calu3-FG, and ^AlloHSC-iNKT cells. c–h In vitro direct killing of SARS-CoV-2 infected cells by ATO culture-generated ^AlloHSC-iNKT cells. c Experimental design. d Target cell killing data of ^AlloHSC-iNKT cells at 24-h post co-culturing with infected cells (n = 5). e FACS detection of CD69, Perforin and Granzyme B of ^AlloHSC-iNKT cells at 24-h post co-culturing with SARS-CoV-2 infected 293T-ACE2-FG cells. f ELISA analysis of IFN-γ production (n = 3). h SARS-CoV-2 infected cell killing mechanisms of ^AlloHSC-iNKT cells. NKG2D and DNAM-1 mediated pathways were studied (n = 5). i Immunofluorescence analysis of direct targeting of SARS-CoV-2 infected cells by ^AlloHSC-iNKT cells. Representative of 3 experiments. Data are presented as the mean ± SEM. ns, not significant, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001, by Student's t test (d, f and g), or by 1-way ANOVA h. See also Additional file 1: Fig. S1