Further characterization of the effector cell responsible for natural cytotoxicity to chicken erythrocytes in man

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Abstract
Blood mononuclear leukocytes responsible for “natural killer” (NK) activity to chicken red blood cells (NK‐CRBC) and to cell line targets (NK‐CLT) were fractionated in 1 × g velocity sedimentation. The velocity distribution profile of the anti‐CRBC cytotoxicity was strikingly different from the anti‐CLT cytotoxicity indicating that these two activities were displayed by different types of effector cells. The cells responsible for the anti‐CRBC action were further isolated after rosetting with the target cells via one‐step density centrifugation over Ficoll‐Isopaque. The isolated cells resembled morphologically both large lymphocytes and small monocytes and carried a strong acid α‐naphthyl acetate esterase activity in their cytoplasm. The inhibition pattern of the esterase reaction with sodium fluoride was that of (T) lymphocytes rather than that of monocytes. The cells highly enriched for anti‐CRBC activity responded to phytohemagglutinin and concanavalin A at a rate equal to control preparations, but did not respond to Staphylococcus aureus strain Cowan I bacteria, purified protein derivative of tuberculin or oidiomycin. Taken together, the results indicate that the cells responsible for NK activity to CRBC are lymphocytes of T lineage.