After Clinical Lung Transplantation, NK Cells with a Lung-Resident Phenotype Represent the Most Prominent Donor Passenger Leukocyte Subset

Donor leukocytes in peripheral blood of recipients after lung transplantation (Tx), i.e. passenger leukocytes have been described a long time ago. However, kinetics, distribution of T vs. NK cells, specific subsets and their tissue origin have not been investigated in detail. Therefore, it was the aim of our study to identify donor NK and T cells, define their early kinetics as well as their phenotype and correlation to cold ischemic times.