A Plate-based Cytotoxicity Assay for the Assessment of Rat Placental Natural Killer Cell Cytolytic Function.

It is well known that decidual natural killer (NK) cells play a critical role in establishment and maintenance of normal pregnancy. Recent studies have demonstrated an altered population of circulating and decidual NK cells in women who suffer from adverse pregnancy complications such as recurrent miscarriage and preeclampsia. Studies from our group have shown that hypertension in pregnancy is associated with an increased population of activated NK cells in the placenta based on the expression of surface activation markers. This manuscript provides a detailed protocol to assess the cytotoxic function of NK cells isolated from placentas in a preeclampsia-like animal model of surgically induced placental ischemia. The following steps are described in detail: generation of single cell suspension, NK cell isolation, ex vivo stimulation, effector:target cell co-culture, and the cytotoxicity assay.