Studying NK cell/dendritic cell interactions

Abstract

Although NK cells were originally identified as "naturally" active cells believed to follow a cell-autonomous activation program, it is now widely accepted that NK cells need to interact with dendritic cells for their full functional activation and for their homeostasis. In this chapter, we will provide an experimental guide to the analysis of NK cell/DC interactions in vitro and in vivo. We have put special emphasis on the recently developed mouse models allowing the inducible and specific ablation of various subsets of DCs and other myeloid cells.