{"term":{"id":"13499","title":"natural killer cell","longtitle":"IUPAC Gold Book - natural killer cell","doi":"10.1351\/goldbook.13499","code":"13499","status":"current","initialism":"<em>initialism<\/em>: NK","synonym":"<em>synonym<\/em>: NK cell","definitions":[{"id":1,"text":"Large granular lymphocyte which does not rearrange nor express either immunoglobulin or T-cell receptor (TCR) genes but is able to recognize and destroy certain tumor and virally infected cells in a major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecule- and antibody-independent manner.","links":[{"term":"T-cell receptor (TCR)","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/13714"},{"term":"lymphocyte","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/13399"},{"term":"major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecule-","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/13434"}],"sources":["PAC, 2012, 84, 1113. 'IUPAC glossary of terms used in immunotoxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2012)' on page 1219 (https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1351\/PAC-REC-11-06-03)"]}],"altoutputs":{"html":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/13499\/html","xml":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/13499\/xml","plain":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/13499\/plain"},"citation":"Citation: 'natural killer cell' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351\/goldbook.13499","license":"The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/) for individual terms.","collection":"If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .","disclaimer":"The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.","accessed":"2026-05-10T16:15:38+00:00"}}