NK cell receptor modulation in viral infections.

Natural killer (NK) cells play a crucial role in controlling viral infections. The ability to kill infected cells without prior immunization, yet being tolerant to self, healthy cells, depends on the balance of germ-line encoded surface receptors. NK cell receptors are divided to either activating, leading to activation of NK cell and its cytotoxic and pro-inflammatory activity, or inhibitory, providing tolerance for a target cell. The signals from inhibitory receptors dominate and NK cell activation requires stimulation of activating receptors. In viral infections, NK cell interaction with infected cell can result in activation, memory-like NK cell differentiation or NK cell exhaustion, which constitutes one of the viral immune evasion mechanisms. All of these states are associated with the modulation of NK cell receptor expression. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge of NK cell receptors and their role in viral infection control, as well as the alterations of their expression observed in acute or chronic infections. We present recently discovered SARS-CoV-2-mediated modulation of NK cell receptor expression and compare them with other human viral infections. Finally, since modulation of NK cell receptor activation gives promising addition to currently used antiviral therapies, we briefly discuss the clinical significance and future perspective of application of agonists or antagonists of activating and inhibitory receptors, respectively. In sum, our review shows that although much is known about NK cell receptor biology, a deeper understanding of NK cell receptors role in viral infections is still needed.

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© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Immunology.