For quantitative PCR, NK cells were purified from PBMCs using the NK-Cell Isolation Kit (Miltenyi Biotec GmbH, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany). RNA was extracted from purified NK cells (NucleoSpin RNAII, Macherey-Nagel) and reverse transcribed by High Capacity cDNA Reverse Transcription Kit (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA) according to manufacturer’s

protocol. The real-time PCRs were performed by Applied Biosystems 7500 Real-Time PCR System in 10 μL reaction mixture volumes containing 1× Power SYBR Green I Master Mix (Applied Biosystems, Warrington, UK), 0.3 μM of KIR-specific primers [25] or 0.3 μM housekeeping gene (GAPDH) (Forward: 5′-GAC CCC TTC ATT GAC CTC AAC TAC A-3′, Reverse: 5′-CTA AGC AGT TGG TGG TGC AGG-3′) and 1 μL of postreverse-transcription mixture. PCR

cycling conditions were set to 2 min at 50°C and 10 min at 95°C followed by 50 selleck compound cycles of 15 s at 95°C RAD001 molecular weight and 1 min at 60°C. The melting curve stage was added to the program in order to control samples’ quality. Resting KIR repertoire expression was compared between CMV-seropositive and -seronegative donors by unpaired t-test. KIR expression after CMV co-culture was compared by paired t-test in samples exposed to CMV versus cells from the same donor cultured in the absence of CMV. All p-values presented are two-sided and were considered significant if < 0.05. This study was supported by grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant PPOOP3_128461 / 1 to M.S.) and from the “Stiftung Forschung Infektionskrankheiten”. The authors would like to express their gratitude to Beatrice Hess (Institute of Microbiology, Basel University) for help in setting up the CMV co-culture. The authors declare no financial or commercial conflict of interest. As a service to our authors and readers, this journal provides supporting information supplied by the authors. Such materials are peer reviewed and may be re-organized for online delivery, but are not copy-edited or typeset. Technical support issues arising from supporting information

(other than missing files) should be addressed to the authors. Figure S1. NK cell KIR and NKG2A expression in CMVseropositive and seronegative donors PBMCs from CMV-seropositive (CMV+) SPTLC1 or CMV-seronegative (CMV-) donors were stained for cell surface expression of the inhibitory receptors (A) KIR2DL1, (B) KIR2DL2/3, (C) KIR2DL5, (D) KIR3DL1 and of the activating receptors (E) KIR2DS1, (H) KIR2DS4, and (J) KIR3DS1 after gating on CD56+/CD3- NK cells. mRNA quantity was compared for the activating receptors KIR2DS2, KIR2DS3, and KIR2DS5 in immunomagnetically sorted NK cells by qRT-PCR. Data represent 6 experiments performed in 54 donors. Expression of each KIR is shown only in donors that carry the respective KIR gene. Horizontal lines represent means. Comparison between groups was made by Student’s T-test. Figure S2.