Gene expression comparison of resting human peripheral-blood NK cells and activated counterparts

Resting NK cells are notoriously difficult to transduce, especially using the VSVG lentivirus pseudotype. When NK cells are expanded and activated using the NKAES system, there is a modest improvement of transduction rates compared to their resting NK counterparts. Still, the transduction efficiency remains poor for robust development of NK cell-based cancer immunotherapy. We envisaged to have a genome-wide expression profile of resting and activated NK (NKAES) cells in order to improve currrent transduction protocols . Overall design: Blood samples were obtained from 4 healthy adult volunteers. NK-cells that were enriched from PBMC using a CD56-positive selection kit were defined as NK resting. A subset of NK resting cells (from 4 donors) were expanded using the Amplification and Expansion System (NKAES) with irradiated K562mbIL21 feeders. Cells were cultured in RPMI1640 supplemented with 10% FCS and penicillin/streptomycin and 200 UI/mL of human recombinant IL-2.