Study of the effect of natural killer cells on the in vitro differentiation of monocytes into dendritic cells in cancer patients

Abstract

Natural Killer cells (NK), although known for their cytotoxic capacity, have been studied in recent years, deepening in their role as modulators immune cells. Dendritic cells (DC) in turn, sentinels of the immune system and bridge between innate and adaptive immunity, are widely studied cells in our laboratory and used as a therapeutic strategy in patients with cancer. It was seen that dendritic cells differentiated from monocytes (Mo) in patients with malignancies, have functional disabilities. After immunization with the strategy implemented in our laboratory, the monocytes recover their ability to differentiate into dendritic cells, but the mechanism by which this improvement occurs is still unknown. The cross-talk between NK cells and DC has been studied extensively over the past 12 years and is well known that in diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, NK cells could influence the differentiation of monocytes into DCs, although undesirable in the case of arthritis, this phenomenon would be desirable in the case of cancer. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to investigate the modulatory function of NK cells and their subpopulations in relation to its ability to promote the differentiation of monocytes into DCs, and study this phenomenon in the context of cancer: before and after patient's therapeutic vaccination. (AU)