NK Cells, Tumor Cell Transition, and Tumor Progression in Solid Malignancies: New Hints for NK-Based Immunotherapy?

Table 1

NK cell infiltrate in solid tumors.

Tumor	NK cell infiltrate: phenotype	NK cell infiltrate: size and/or location	Ref.
Lung adenocarcinoma	Reduced expression of NKp30, NKp46		[34]
	Enrichment of CD56 Perf poorly cytotoxic NK cells		[35]
Non-small cell lung cancer	CD56CD16 infiltrating NK cells with impaired killing capability		[36]
	Infiltrating CD56 with low activating NK-rec expression and function	NKp46^+ cells mainly localized at the invasive margin	[37]
Melanoma (primary)		Moderate/low CD56^+CD3^− cells	[32]
Melanoma (primary/metastases)		Low CD56^+NKG2D^+ NK cells	[38]
Melanoma (metastases)		Low CD56^+ NK cells	[21]
Melanoma (nodal/skin metastases)		CD56^+ NK cells rarely present in melanoma	[39]
Melanoma (nodal metastases)	NKp30, NKG2D expression inversely correlated with number of tumor cells in the LN	NK cells surround tumor cell cluster	[40]
Melanoma (nodal metastases)		Enrichment of CD56 KIR^+CD57^+ cytotoxic NK cells	[41]
Colorectal cancer		Scarce NKp46^+ infiltrating NK cells (despite high levels of chemokines)	[42]
Colorectal cancer	Reduced NKp46, NKp30, DNAM-1 expression		[43]
Colorectal cancer (lung metastases)		Low NKp46^+ NK cell infiltrate	[44]
Breast cancer	Expression/function of NKp30, NKG2D in infiltrating NK cells decreases with disease progression		[45]
Breast cancer	Enrichment of CD56 Perf poorly cytotoxic NK cells		[35]
Renal cell carcinoma (lung metastases)		High NKp46^+ NK cell infiltrate correlates with improved survival	[44]
GIST (GastroIntestinal Stromal Tumors)		Substantial NKp46^+ NK cell infiltrate mainly surrounding tumor nests	[46]
GIST (GastroIntestinal Stromal Tumors)		Low NK cell infiltration/high metastases at diagnosis	[46]
GIST (GastroIntestinal Stromal Tumors)		High NK cell infiltration/prolonged progression-free survival after imatinib treatment	[47]