Morphology and Function of Ganglio-N-tetraosylceramide-Positive Lymphocyte Mediators of Natural Killer Activity23

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Abstract
More than 90% of nylon wool-passed spleen cells from nude mice reacted with ganglio-N-tetraosylceramide (asialo GM1 ) which eliminated mouse natural killer (NK) cell activity in the presence of complement. The successful enrichment of asialo GM1-positive (asialo GM1+) cells made possible the demonstration that the number of asialo GM1+ cells was correlated with NK cell activity as well as with binding frequency to YAC-1 target cells. Morphologically, by light and immunoelectron microscopic examinations, the enriched asialo GM1+ cells were composed of 90% lymphocytes and 10% large cells with the characteristics of monocytes. However, the asialo GM1+ lymphocytes (but not the monocytes) bound to the target cells and gave rise to the sequential cytolysis. Although asialo GM1-negative lymphocytes and asialo GM1+ monocytes were sometimes observed to bind to target cells, cytolytic features of the target cells were not demonstrated. These results strongly suggest that asialo GM1+ lymphocytes are essential for NK cytolysis by directly binding to target cells.