{"doi":"10.1093/intimm/dxaf016","title":"Immunological memory in natural killer cells","abstract":"Immune cells are classified into adaptive and innate immune cells. Adaptive immune cells-i.e. T cells and B cells-respond to pathogens in an antigen-specific manner and then provide immunological memory, contributing to long-term host defense against reinfection. In contrast, innate immune cells promptly respond to pathogens, but they are short-lived and have been thought not to contribute to immunological memory. Natural killer (NK) cells are lymphocytes essential for controlling viral infections and cancer. NK cells-which have traditionally been classified as innate immune cells-have recently been revealed as being capable of differentiating into memory NK cells, thus participating in immunological memory, formerly considered to be restricted to adaptive immune cells. Like memory T and B cells, memory NK cells (i) can be long-lived; (ii) display distinct phenotypes from naïve and activated NK cells; (iii) show augmented cellular functions, as compared with naïve NK cells; (iv) have secondary proliferation capacity; and (v) confer an improved host defense when transferred to naïve recipients. Therefore, at least in a broad sense, they fulfill the definition of immunological memory. In this article, I provide an overview of NK cell memory and recent research trends regarding this phenomenon.","journal":"International Immunology","year":2025,"id":550605,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9538,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1062618,"name":"Tsukasa Nabekura","orcid":"0000-0002-8386-3607","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":105,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:54:16.596730Z","pmid":"40388217","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}