Natural Killer Cells from Malignant Pleural Effusion Are Endowed with a Decidual-Like Proangiogenic Polarization

Figure 4

CD69 expression on NK cell subsets. Flow cytometric analysis on NK cell subsets of healthy individuals (hPB), peripheral blood (iPB) and pleural effusion (iPE) from patients with inflammatory disease, peripheral blood (ptPB) and pleural effusion (ptPE) from patients with primary tumor, and peripheral blood (tmPB) and pleural effusion (tmPE) from patients with tumor metastasis revealed upregulation of CD69, an activating and decidual NK marker, in PE samples compared to autologous and healthy control PB-NK cells (a, b). CD69 increased expression was statistically significant in both CD56^bright and CD56^dim NK cell subsets with higher percentage in CD56^bright. Representative dot plots of CD69 (c) distribution in CD56^bright and CD56^dim NK cell subsets in healthy donors and patients with inflammatory, primary, and metastatic tumor PE are shown, respectively. Data are shown as mean ± SEM of 39 samples; , , , and ( values are shown).

(a)

(b)

(c)