NK (Natural Killer) cells are cytotoxic (cyto - cells; toxic - kill) lymphocytes (white blood cells); they help with rejecting tumor cells and viruses. Their mechanism is that the release granules with proteins (perforin and granzyme) inside that cause the cells they are attacking to die by programmed cell death (apoptosis).
In multiple sclerosis (MS), we usually talk about T-cells and, more recently, B-cells -- but NK cells are also differentiated from lymphoid progenitors.
NK-cells do not express T-cell antigen receptors (TCR) or Pan T marker CD3 or surface immunoglobulins (Ig) B cell receptor but they usually express the surface markers CD16 (FcγRIII) and CD56 in humans, and NK1.1/NK1.2 in certain strains of mice. Up to 80% of NK cells also express CD8.
Why is this important?
XMRV has been associated with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) by infecting NK cells, but XMRV is also found in prostate cancer cells, so maybe we are just learning more about a different retrovirus.
Still, this gives us pause.
Also, we are paused by NASA's NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), planned and successful crsh into the moon to raise a plume of debris, which was collected by a probe, to search for evidence of ice on the "dark side" of the moon (the other side seems to be too fizzled out by the sun to have any water.
This has been seen as damage to our moon (and even "poking" out the face of the man in the moon). At first, I was also bothered by our fiddling (pun) with the moon, but then I remembered how much we do so with out own planet.
Food for thought.
Medical Director
Neurologique
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