ABSTRACT
Lymphokine-activated killer cells are antimetastatic cells which were originally generated by incubating a mixture of mouse splenocytes or human peripheral lymphocytes with a source of T cell growth factor or, more recently, with recombinant interleukin-2. To obtain clearly interpretable data on the in vivo distribution of LAK cells, it is essential to perform studies with a highly purified population of effector cells. Natural Killer cells have been associated with the morphologically distinct subpopulation of lymphocytes known as large granular lymphocytes (LGL), having a high cytoplasm to nuclear ratio and discrete azurophilic granules in the cytoplasm. The tissue distribution LGL has been studied less extensively, mostly due to the difficulty of isolating a highly purified population of the cells. The migration of small lymphocytes has been studied extensively both in vivo and in vitro. Small lymphocytes emigrate from the blood into the peripheral lymph nodes or Peyer's patches by binding to the specialized cells lining the postcapillary venules.
