Nature Communications (Jun 2017)

IL-21-mediated reversal of NK cell exhaustion facilitates anti-tumour immunity in MHC class I-deficient tumours

  • Hyungseok Seo,
  • Insu Jeon,
  • Byung-Seok Kim,
  • Myunghwan Park,
  • Eun-Ah Bae,
  • Boyeong Song,
  • Choong-Hyun Koh,
  • Kwang-Soo Shin,
  • Il-Kyu Kim,
  • Kiyoung Choi,
  • Taegwon Oh,
  • Jiyoun Min,
  • Byung Soh Min,
  • Yoon Dae Han,
  • Suk-Jo Kang,
  • Sang Joon Shin,
  • Yeonseok Chung,
  • Chang-Yuil Kang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15776
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 1
pp. 1 – 14

Abstract

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Loss of major histocompatibility complex MHC-I expression contributes to cancer immune evasion. Here, the authors show that, in both mice and humans, MHC-I downregulation is associated with the induction of NK-cell exhaustion and that IL-21 restores NK-cell function and inhibits tumours progression.