Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells suppressing activation of allogeneic cytokine-induced killer/natural killer cells either by direct or indirect interaction.

Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) were recently found to be associated with some special immunological characteristics, the immunoregulatory effect of MSC was dose-dependent. Low amount of MSC was associated with mild immunosuppression or even immune activation, while the high amount of that was associated with significant immunosuppressive effect. In this study, by using a transwell system, we explored the effect of MSC on the cell cycle, apoptosis rate and the expression of CD69, an activation marker, on the allogeneic cord blood derived cytokine-induced killer(CIK)/natural killer(NK) cells.