Irradiation-resistant NK cells in a F1 recipient can reject parental bone marrow (BM), and host NK cells can also prevent engraftment of allogeneic BM. We show that repopulating BM cells in certain mouse strains express the RAE-1 proteins, which are ligands for the activating NKG2D NK cell receptor. Treatment with a neutralizing NKG2D antibody prevented rejection of parental BALB/c BM in (C57BL/6 × BALB/c) F1 recipients, and allowed engraftment of allogeneic BALB.B BM in C57BL/6 recipients. Additionally, BM from RAE-1ε transgenic C57BL/6 mice was rejected by syngeneic animals, but accepted with anti-NKG2D treatment. If other stem cells or tissues upregulate expression of NKG2D ligands after transplantation, NKG2D may contribute to graft rejection in immunocompetent hosts.Natural killer (NK) cells play a critical role in the elimination of virus-infected cells or transformed cells 1 . Although beneficial in host protection against infectious disease and cancer, irradiation-resistant mouse NK cells can reject bone marrow (BM) cell grafts 2 -5 . This process whereby NK cells in F1 recipients reject parental BM grafts has been called F1 hybrid resistance 6 , 7 . Initially, the hypothesis proposed to explain hybrid resistance was the expression of hybrid histocompatibility (Hh) antigens on parental bone marrow cells that were not expressed in the F1 hybrid mice. Genetic mapping studies suggested that at least in some mouse strains the genes regulating the Hh antigens localized to the H-2S/D region 8 . More recently, the ability of NK cells to recognize and reject parental BM cells has been explained, in part, by the lack of inhibitory Ly49 receptors specific for parental H-2 proteins on a subset of NK cells in the F1 recipient 9 -12 . Thus, a subset of NK cells in the F1 recipient lacking inhibitory receptors for the parental BM cells might eliminate these parental BM grafts. However, the NK cell receptors that initiate the attack against BM grafts have not been defined.NKG2D is an activating receptor that is expressed on the cell surface of NK cells, activated CD8 + T cells and γδTcR + T cells 13 . In resting NK cells, NKG2D associates with the DAP10 adapter protein, and in activated mouse NK cells an NKG2D isoform generated by alternative splicing can also associate with the DAP12 adapter protein 14 . NKG2D binds to a family of ligands with structural homology to major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I proteins 1 , 15 ). In mice, the retinoic acid early inducible-1 (RAE-1) family of proteins, H60 and MULT1 function as high affinity ligands for NKG2D 16 -18 . Although the genes encoding the RAE-1 proteins were first discovered by their expression in embryonic tissues 19 , 20 , they are largely silent in normal, healthy tissues in adult mice, but are induced by viral infection or cellular transformation. Here, we have examined expression of the NKG2D ligands in BM cells repopulating irradiated mice and have evaluated the role of NKG2D in hybrid resistance.
RESULTS
Expression of NKG2D ligands on ...