Association of peripheral NK cell counts with Helios + IFN-γ - T regs in patients with good long-term renal allograft function

Little is known about a possible interaction of natural killer (NK) cells with regulatory T cells (T ) in long-term stable kidney transplant recipients. Absolute counts of lymphocyte and T subsets were studied in whole blood samples of 136 long-term stable renal transplant recipients and 52 healthy controls using eight-colour fluorescence flow cytometry. Patients were 1946 ± 2201 days (153-10 268 days) post-transplant and showed a serum creatinine of 1·7 ± 0·7 mg/dl. Renal transplant recipients investigated > 1·5 years post-transplant showed higher total NK cell counts than recipients studied