Natural killer cell

…In this way, each animal species is born with the ability to avoid certain types of infectious diseases. In addition, when non-self cells or cells that have been altered by viral infections are present in the body, the individual will attempt to destroy them with non-specific humoral factors, such as lysozyme and complement components, and lymphoid cells called natural killer cells (abbreviated as NK cells) will recognize them as foreign bodies and destroy them even though this is the first time they have encountered them. Expanding on this, a person with type O blood will naturally have a small amount of antibodies against type A red blood cells, even though they have never received a blood transfusion, and many people will continue to produce extremely small amounts of antibodies against various antigenic substances that exist in nature, even though they have never come into contact with them before (these are called natural antibodies). …

*Some of the terminology that mentions "natural killer cells" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…このようにして，それぞれの動物種は，もともとある種の感染症から免れるように生まれついている。そのほかにも，自己でないような異種の細胞やウイルス感染などで変化した細胞が生体内に存在すると，個体は非特異的な液性因子，たとえばリゾチームや補体成分などでそれを破壊しようとするし，ナチュラルキラー細胞natural killer cell(NK細胞と略記)と呼ばれるリンパ球系細胞は，それに初めて出会ったにもかかわらず異物と認めて破壊してしまう。さらに拡大して考えると，O型の人は，輸血を受けたことがないにもかかわらず，もともとA型赤血球に対する少量の抗体をもっているし，自然界に存在するさまざまな抗原物質に対して，これまで接触した経験がないのに，しばしばきわめて微量の抗体をつくりつづけている場合も多い(これを自然抗体という)。…

※「natural killer cell」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報