Chemokine Receptor Expression on Normal Blood CD56⁺ NK-Cells Elucidates Cell Partners That Comigrate during the Innate and Adaptive Immune Responses and Identifies a Transitional NK-Cell Population

Figure 1

Representative dot plots illustrating the expression of different chemokine receptors (CKR) on the conventional (red dots) and (blue dots) NK-cell subsets present in the normal peripheral blood (PB). In order to obtain the dot plots showed in this figure, PB cells were stained with APC-conjugated anti-CD3, PC5-conjugated anti-CD56, PE-conjugated anti-CKR, and FITC-conjugated anti-CD16 monoclonal antibodies. Dot plots in the first row illustrate the strategy of gating. Using the CD3/CD56 dot plot, CD56⁺ NK-cells were first identified based on their CD3⁻/CD56⁺ phenotype (black dots), comparatively to T (CD3⁺) and B (CD3⁻CD56⁻) cells (gray dots). Then, after gating for CD56⁺ NK-cells (first CD56/CD16 dot plot), the (red dots) and (blue dots) NK-cell populations were identified based on their typical patterns of CD56 and CD16 expression (second CD56/CD16 dot plot). Finally, these NK-cell populations were analyzed for the expression of the CKR (CKR/CD56 dot plots). The numbers above the and NK-cells inside the CKR/CD56 dot plots indicate the percentage of cells staining positively for the correspondent CKR and were obtained after gating separately for each NK-cell population (CKR/CD56 dot plots gated for and NK-cells are not shown, for simplicity).