Fig. 1

Umbilical cord blood (UCB) derived NK cells can be used as allogeneic therapy for the treatment of medulloblastoma. a Umbilical cord blood NK cells (n = 23) expand as well as patient samples (n = 3) after 12 days in culture (mean fold expansion 228 ± 33 for cord blood 159 ± 121 for patient samples p = ns). b Umbilical cord blood (black circles) and NK cells from patients (gray circle) lyse HLA-negative K562 lines (mean cytotoxicity of UCB-derived NK cells at 37.6 ± 2.3%, 33.6 ± 1.9%, and 32.3 ± 2.6% vs. mean cytotoxicity of patient-derived NK cells at 37.9 ± 4.7%, 34.7 ± 3.7%, and 32.5 ± 5.1%, both for E:T ratios of 20:1, 10:1, and 5:1 respectively, n = 3, p = ns). c Umbilical cord blood (black circles) lyse Daoy cell lines, while NK cells from patients (gray squares) show decreased killing (mean cytotoxicity of UCB-derived NK cells at 29.4 ± 2.1%, 27.2 ± 1.8%, and 25.1 ± 2.9% vs. mean cytotoxicity of patient-derived NK cells at 16.2 ± 8.1%, 13.2 ± 8.6%, and 8.9 ± 6.9%, both for E:T ratios of 20:1, 10:1, and 5:1 respectively, p = 0.038, 0.024, 0.029 respectively). Error bars refer to standard error of the mean