Ricerc@Sapienza

Natural killer (NK) cells are immune innate effectors playing a pivotal role in the immunosurveillance
of multiple myeloma (MM) since they are able to directly recognize
and kill MM cells. In this regard, among activating receptors expressed by NK cells,
NKG2D represents an important receptor for the recognition of MM cells, being its
ligands expressed by tumor cells, and being able to trigger NK cell cytotoxicity. The
MHC class I-related molecule A (MICA) is one of the NKG2D ligands; it is encoded

The activating receptor NKG2D is peculiar in its capability to bind to numerous and highly diversified MHC class I-like self-molecules. These ligands are poorly expressed on normal cells but can be induced on damaged, transformed or infected cells, with the final NKG2D ligand expression resulting from multiple levels of regulation. Although redundant molecular mechanisms can converge in the regulation of all NKG2D ligands, different stimuli can induce specific cellular responses, leading to the expression of one or few ligands.