Bitter Melon Enhances Natural Killer-Mediated Toxicity against Head and Neck Cancer Cells

Natural killer (NK) cells are one of the major components of innate immunity, with the ability to mediate antitumor activity. Understanding the role of NK-cell–mediated tumor killing in controlling of solid tumor growth is still in the developmental stage. We have shown recently that bitter melon extract (BME) modulates the regulatory T cell (Treg) population in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). However, the role of BME in NK-cell modulation against HNSCC remains unknown. In this study, we investigated whether BME can enhance the NK-cell killing activity against HNSCC cells. Our results indicated that treatment of human NK-cell line (NK3.3) with BME enhances ability to kill HNSCC cells. BME increases granzyme B accumulation and translocation/accumulation of CD107a/LAMP1 in NK3.3 cells exposed to BME. Furthermore, an increase in cell surface expression of CD16 and NKp30 in BME-treated NK3.3 cells was observed when cocultured with HNSCC cells. Collectively, our results demonstrated for the first time that BME augments NK-cell–mediated HNSCC killing activity, implicating an immunomodulatory role of BME. Cancer Prev Res; 10(6); 337–44. ©2017 AACR.

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