Functional And Phenotypic Characterization Of Human NK Cells Post-Expansion

For natural killer (NK) cell therapies to succeed as a broad-scale, off-the-shelf treatment, researchers need more effective tools for cell expansion and characterization. This includes the ability to generate a high number of functional NK cells and a more consistent way to assess their potency. This application note explores a method to expand human NK cells with a specialized medium, which yielded an average of 185-fold expansion after 21 days with over 90% viability.

The expanded NK cells maintained their cytotoxic function, cytokine expression, and degranulation when co-cultured with cancer cells. Additionally, the note highlights the use of patient-derived tumoroids as a more physiologically relevant model than traditional cell lines to assess the killing potential of NK cells. Learn more about this method for expanding functional NK cells and assessing their therapeutic potential.