Patent Issued for Technology for efficient activation of NKT cells (USPTO 11744860).

"As described above, mature dendritic cells are used exclusively as antigen presenting cells to NKT cells, and monocytes and immature dendritic cells were considered to be incapable of appropriately presenting antigens to NKT cells and efficiently activating the NKT cells. This indicates that a step of differentiating CD14 positive cells into dendritic cells is not necessary and that NKT cell ligand-pulsed cells are obtained directly from the isolated CD14 positive cells or CD14 positive cell lines. The acquired NKT cell ligand-pulsed cell (NKT cell ligand-pulsed CD14 positive cell or NKT cell ligand-pulsed CD14 positive cell line) strongly induced proliferation of NKT cells, IFN-g production and cytotoxic activity by NKT cells. [Extracted from the article]