Adherent lymphokine-activated natural killer cells in normal and severe combined immunodeficiency mice: large granular lymphocytes with natural killer cell phenotype and high cytolytic activity.

Plastic-adherent lymphokine-activated natural killer (LANK) cells were generated from nylon wool-nonadherent murine splenocytes cultured in recombinant interleukin-2 (IL-2). Under such conditions, adherent lymphokine-activated killer cells capable of killing natural killer (NK)-resistant targets were not generated. Adherent LANK cells proliferated rapidly and closely resembled NK cells in their morphology, cytotoxic reactivity, and surface marker expression. Mice with severe combined immunodeficiency (scid) were used to generate adherent LANK cells to define the role of T cells in LANK cell development. Scid lymphocytes responded to IL-2 by becoming adherent LANK cells with potent NK-like activity, suggesting that soluble lymphokines other than IL-2 that may have been produced by T cells were not required for the generation of LANK cell activity in mice.