Establishment and characterization of NKMS-1, a novel mouse NK cell line

Following the recent success of genetically modified T cells in cancer immunotherapy, an increasing number of studies are focusing on natural killer (NK) cells as an alternative to T cells. The characteristics of NK cells may help overcome the disadvantages of T cell-based therapy, such as graft-versus-host disease, cytokine release syndrome, and the high cost and long preparation time of the treatment. To accelerate the development of NK cell-based therapies, the establishment of appropriate mouse models using murine NK cells would be beneficial. Although several groups have reported the establishment of murine NK cell clones, only a few are currently available. In this study, we established a murine NK cell line, NKMS-1, which can grow in a standard cell culture medium supplemented with interleukin-2 and can be stored frozen, retaining cytotoxicity and the ability to be genetically modified. These properties make the cell line suitable for studying NK cell-based cancer immunotherapy and NK cell biology.