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Natural killer cell recognition of missing self

The idea that NK cells can distinguish aberrant cells by recognizing 'absence of the expected', rather than 'presence of the unexpected' emerged more than 25 years ago. Klas Kärre recapitulates how the idea took shape, and the first five years of experimental work to test its general predictions.

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Acknowledgements

My work has been supported by Karolinska Institute, the Swedish Cancer Society, the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, the Göran Gustafsson Foundation and the European Molecular Biology Organization. I thank all collaborators in the past and present: graduate students, undergraduate students, postdoctoral fellows, mentors and collaborators in other groups in many different countries, especially R. Kiessling, H.-G. Ljunggren, G. Klein, P. Höglund and C. Öhlén.

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Kärre, K. Natural killer cell recognition of missing self. Nat Immunol 9, 477–480 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni0508-477

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