Fig. 7: NK cell analyses in sALS patients.

a Expression of ULBP-3 in the spinal cord and cerebral motor cortex of control or sALS patients, showing co-staining with Smi32⁺ cells (n = 8 controls, 12 sALS patients). Scale bar: 20 μm. b Colocalization of Smi32 and ULBP-3 covered area in the spinal cord and cerebral motor cortex of control or sALS patients (n = 8 controls, 12 sALS patients **P < 0.01 power 1 two-tailed Student’s t-test). c Representative image of NK cell–MN contacts in the spinal cord of ALS patient (original magnification, x600). Scale bar: 10 μm. (n = 8 ALS patients). For boxplots, the center line, boxes and whiskers represent the median, inner quartiles, and rest of the data distribution, respectively. d Distances of NKp46⁺ cells from vessel endothelial cells (CD31⁺ cells) in the spinal cord of ALS patient (n = 12 sALS patients). Scale bar: 20 μm. Representative immunofluorescence is shown. e Expression of IFNγ in the spinal cord of control and sALS patients (n = 3, **P < 0.01 power 0.871 two-tailed Student’s t-test). Error bars show mean ± SEM. f Frequency of IFNγ⁺ cells in the CD56⁺/CD3⁻ cell populations (NK cells) isolated from the peripheral blood of control or sALS patients (n = 6 controls, 9 sALS patients. *P < 0.05 two-tailed Student’s t-test). Note that when the highest value among sALS patients was excluded, the difference among the two groups remains significant (p < 0.034 power 0.716). g NK cells, isolated from the peripheral blood of control or sALS patients, were incubated with human K562 cells. Degranulation was assessed by FACS analysis of CD107⁺ cells (%, minus degranulation in the absence of targets) (n = 14 controls, 11 sALS patients). h, i Frequency of GZMb⁺ (h) and PRF⁺ (i) cells in the CD56⁺/CD3^- cell populations (NK cells) isolated from the peripheral blood of control or sALS patients (n = 8 controls, 15 sALS patients). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.