Functional visualization of NK cell-mediated killing of metastatic single tumor cells
In my 40-year-career of research, this is one of the most favorite papers. As a pathologist, I observed many cancer tissues invaded by a massive number of immune cells; however, I never saw a single immune cell fighting against a cancer cell. I like Table 1 most. It says, on a 1 km capillary bed of a mouse lung, 2 million NK soldiers are patrolling at 5 micrometer/min. Once a cancer cell arrives at the lung, an NK cell fights a duel with a 50% winning probability. This rate sounds inefficient, but actually, NK cells attack a cancer cell one after another every two hours on average. So, the cancer cell has to keep winning for a day until it maneuvers to hide from NK cells.
