Identification of novel chicken CD4+ CD3− blood population with NK cell like features

Chicken NK cells have been defined in embryonic spleen and intestinal epithelium as CD8(+) lymphoid cells that lack BCR and TCR, whereas blood NK cells have not been phenotypically defined. Here we employed the mab, 8D12 directed against CHIR-AB1, a chicken Fc receptor, to define a previously uncharacterized lymphoid cell population in the blood. Although CHIR-AB1 expression was found on several cell populations, cells with extraordinary high...