Killer Cell Immunoglobulin Like Receptor 2DL3 (KIR2DL3)

By RT-PCR screening of NK cells with primers based on the KIR2DL1 sequence, Colonna and Samaridis (1995) identified a KIR2DL3 cDNA, which they called NKAT2, encoding a deduced 341-amino acid type I transmembrane protein. Sequence analysis revealed a structure similar to that described for KIR2DL1, with a 21-amino acid signal peptide, an extracellular region containing two C2-type Ig-like domains, a 19-amino acid hydrophobic transmembrane region, and a long cytoplasmic tail with 2 ITIMs (immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motifs). Using tryptic peptide sequences from p58 and degenerate PCR primers to screen an NK cell cDNA library, Wagtmann et al. (1995) independently isolated a KIR2DL3 cDNA, which they called clone 6 (CL6). Dohring et al. (1996) identified splice variants of NKAT2.