S. Lazetic et al., HUMAN NATURAL-KILLER-CELL RECEPTORS INVOLVED IN MHC CLASS-I RECOGNITION ARE DISULFIDE-LINKED HETERODIMERS OF CD94 AND NKG2 SUBUNITS, The Journal of immunology, 157(11), 1996, pp. 4741-4745
CD94 receptors expressed on NK cells have been implicated in the recog
nition of certain HLA class I allotypes, We now demonstrate that CD94
glycoproteins form disulfide-bonded heterodimers with the NKG2A/B, NKG
2C, and NKG2E glycoproteins, NKG2A/B possesses two immunoreceptor tyro
sine-based inhibition motif (ITIM) sequences in its cytoplasmic domain
, which may be responsible for the inhibitory function of these recept
ors, whereas other NKG2 proteins lack ITIMs and may potentially transm
it positive signals, Structural heterogeneity in the NKG2 gene family
and the formation of heterodimers with CD94 provides for the creation
of a diverse NK cell repertoire.