Adult natural killer (NK) cells had not generally been thought to expr
ess CD3 proteins other than zeta; however they were recently demonstra
ted to express CD3 epsilon in an activated condition. This prompted us
to investigate the tumor tissues from 17 patients with Leu4-negative
peripheral T-cell lymphoma, including eight with nasal T-cell lymphoma
(NTCL), for the expression of CD3 epsilon. The tissues were immunohis
tologically stained with rabbit antihuman CD3 epsilon antibody. The ex
pression of CD3 epsilon was more frequent in the tissues of nasal lymp
homa than in the non-nasal lymphoma tissues: specimens from six of eig
ht of the NTCL patients expressed CD3 epsilon, while only one of nine
of the non-NTCL patients did so. The NTCL patients presented clinicall
y with lethal midline granuloma, had histologic findings of tumor necr
osis and angioinvasion, and had a peculiar CD2+, Leu4-, CD3 epsilon+,
CD5-, CD7+, CD45RO+, CD4-, CD8-, beta F1-, T-cell receptor (TRC)delta
1-, CD56+ phenotype. This peculiar phenotype seems to he closely assoc
iated with NTCL. No clonal rearrangement of the TCR genes was detected
in three NTCL patients examined. The NK cell origin of NTCL has been
suggested by previous investigators. The phenotypic correspondence of
our nasal tumors to adult activated NK cells supports this possibility
, together with their lack of clonal rearrangement of the TCR genes.