Characterization and distribution of lymphocyte subpopulations in multiple sclerosis plaques versus autoimmune demyelinating lesions

Role of the innate immune system in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis

“…Studies in humans suggest a more beneficial effect of various subsets of NK cells in multiple sclerosis. NK cells are present in demyelinating lesions of patients with MS (Traugott, 1985). A decreased cytotoxic activity of circulating NK cells has been described in patients with MS during clinical relapses (Kastrukoff et al, 2003; Kastrukoff et al, 1998).…”

NK cells: elusive players in autoimmunity

“…In a murine system, NK cells can be recruited from blood into antigenstimulated lymph nodes, where they provide IFN-g for Th1 polarization [38]. NK cells can also migrate into peripheral tissue, such as sites of viral replication [39], growing tumors [40] and target organs of autoimmunity [14,29,[41][42][43][44][45]. Thus, evidence supports roles for NK cells, not only in the circulation but also in lymph nodes or tissues, in which they could act as messengers between innate and adaptive immunity, or in which they could mediate target cell destruction.…”

The Natural Killer Cell – Friend or Foe in Autoimmune Disease?

“…NK cells, or NK‐like cells, have been identified in target organs of patients suffering from autoimmune disease (e.g. in rheumatoid synovial tissue [34–36] and among infiltrating mononuclear cells of MS patient brain lesions [37]). Reduced peripheral NK cell activities and, in some studies, also differences in NK cell numbers are found when patients suffering from various autoimmune syndromes, such as remitting/relapsing (r/r) MS [38–42], Sjögren's Syndrome (SS) [41, 43–45], MG [46], rheumatoid arthritis (RA) [47–50], SLE [43, 47, 51, 52] and type 1 diabetes [53–56], are studied and compared with controls.…”

“…During infection and inflammation, NK cells are recruited into peripheral tissues [132, 133], and NK cells have been found in target organs of patients suffering from autoimmune pathologies [34–37]. Although there currently is little in vivo evidence for a NK cell‐mediated destruction of target cells in human autoimmune disease, there is increasing in vitro evidence that NK cells can target autologous cells.…”