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// Inbar Levi 1, * , Hagai Amsalem 2, * , Aviram Nissan 3 , Merav Darash-Yahana 4 , Tamar Peretz 4 , Ofer Mandelboim 5 , Jacob Rachmilewitz 1 1 Goldyne Savad Institute of Gene Therapy, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel 2 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hadassah University Hospital-Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel 3 The Surgical Oncology Laboratory, Department of Surgery, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel 4 Sharett Institute of Oncology, Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel 5 The Lautenberg Center for General and Tumor Immunology, Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Jacob Rachmilewitz, e-mail: rjacob@cc. huji.ac.il Keywords: NK cells, decidua, VEGF, TILs Received: January 25, 2015 Accepted: February 25, 2015 Published: March 23, 2015 ABSTRACT The presence of tumor-infiltrating Natural Killer (NK) within a tumor bed may be indicative of an ongoing immune response toward the tumor. However, many studies have shown that an intense NK infiltration, is associated with advanced disease and may even facilitate cancer development. The exact role of the tumor infiltrating NK cells and the correlation between their presence and poor prognosis remains unclear. Interestingly, during pregnancy high numbers of a specific NK subset, CD56 bright CD16 dim , are accumulated within first trimester deciduas. These decidual NK (dNK) cells are unique in their gene expression pattern secret angiogenic factors that induce vascular growth. In the present study we demonstrate a significant enrichment of a CD56 brigh CD16 dim NK cells within tumors. These NK cells express several dNK markers including VEGF. Hence, this study adds new insights into the identity of tumor residual NK cells, which has clear implications for the treatment of human cancer.
Levi et al. (Mon,) studied this question.