Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) using tumor antigen-independent killer cells has been widely used in clinical trials of cancer treatment. Circumventing the need for identification of a particular tumor-associated antigen on tumor cells, the approach has opened possibilities for the extension of ACT immunotherapy to patients with a wide variety of cancer types. Namely, Natural Killer (NK), Lymphokine-activated Killer (LAK) cells and Cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells are the most commonly used cell types in antigen-independent adoptive immunotherapy of cancer. They all originate from peripheral blood mononuclear cells and share several common features in their killing mechanisms. However, despite broad application in clinical settings, the boundaries between these cell types are not very clearly defined. The current study aims to review different aspects of these cell populations in terms of phenotypical characteristic and preparation media, to clarify how the boundaries are set.

中文翻译：

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为过继免疫疗法准备的不依赖抗原的杀伤细胞：一种来源，不同的方案，不同的命名法。

使用不依赖肿瘤抗原的杀伤细胞的过继细胞治疗（ACT）已广泛用于癌症治疗的临床试验。绕开了在肿瘤细胞上鉴定特定的肿瘤相关抗原的需要，该方法为将ACT免疫疗法扩展至具有多种癌症类型的患者提供了可能性。即，自然杀伤（NK），淋巴因子激活的杀伤（LAK）细胞和细胞因子诱导的杀伤（CIK）细胞是癌症的抗原非依赖性过继免疫疗法中最常用的细胞类型。它们都起源于外周血单核细胞，并且在其杀伤机制上具有几个共同的特征。然而，尽管在临床环境中得到了广泛的应用，但这些细胞类型之间的界限还不是很清楚。