Figure 5

Expansion of liver DX5⁻ natural killer (NK) cells at the late phase after islet transplantation (IT). Phenotypic alteration of TCRβ⁻ NK1.1⁺ NK cells in the liver from diabetic C57BL/6 (B6) mice was analysed 14 days (n = 6, 3 independent experiments) or 35 days (n = 8, 6 independent experiments) after intraportal IT of syngeneic 300 islets. The data from transplanted diabetic mice are compared with the data from control diabetic B6 mice (open circles; control diabetic B6 mice, closed circles; transplanted diabetic mice). Diabetic B6 mice treated with streptozotocin 7 days before were used as recipients. (A) The absolute number of NK cells obtained from the whole livers of diabetic mice that were transplanted with 300 islets. ^***p < 0.001, compared with control. (B,C) Proportion of DX5⁻ NK cells in total NK cells and the absolute number of DX5⁻ NK cells obtained from the whole liver of diabetic mice that were transplanted with 300 islets. ^***p < 0.001, compared with control. (D) The absolute number of DX5⁺ NK cells obtained from the whole liver of diabetic mice that were transplanted with 300 islets. ^**p < 0.01; ^***p < 0.001, compared with control. (E–G) The proportion of liver NK cells positive for markers at the indicated time points. ^*p < 0.05; ^**p < 0.01; ^***p < 0.001, compared with control.