The Role of Natural Killer (NK) Cells in Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (EAE) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

Although NK cells are innate lymphocytes and have long been well known for their cytotoxic actions against tumor and virus infected cells, accumulating data indicate that they play an important immunoregulatory role in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases, such as MS and EAE. Especially, in recent years growing body of evidence suggest that NK cells have the potential to eliminate harmful self-reactive T cells and act as modulator of adaptive immunity. Here we review the recent advances in the research of NK cells related to EAE and MS, including general properties of NK cells, NK cells and EAE, and NK cells and MS, with emphasis on the mechanism of NK cell regulatory roles in EAE and MS.