KIR2DL3 Human

Killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs), are a family of cell surface glycoproteins found on Natural Killer (NK) Cells, which are important cells of the immune system. They control the killing function of these cells by interacting with MHC class I molecules, which are expressed on all cell types. This interaction allows them to identify virally infected cells or tumor cells that have a distinctive low level of Class I MHC on their surface. The majority of KIRs are inhibitory, which means that their recognition of MHC suppresses the cytotoxic activity of their NK cell. Only a limited number of KIRs have the capacity to activate cells.
The KIR genes are found in a cluster on chromosome 19q13.4 within the 1 Mb leukocyte receptor complex (LRC). KIR molecules are extremely polymorphic, meaning their gene sequences differ significantly between individuals, so that different individuals have different arrays/repertoires of KIR genes.
The KIR proteins are categorized by the number of extracellular immunoglobulin domains (2D or 3D) and by whether they have a long (L) or short (S) cytoplasmic domain. KIR proteins with the long cytoplasmic domain transduce inhibitory signals upon ligand binding via an immune tyrosine-based inhibitory motif (ITIM). Whereas KIR proteins with the short cytoplasmic domain lack the ITIM motif and instead associate with the TYRO protein tyrosine kinase binding protein to transduce activating signals.
KIR2DL3 is an inhibitory Killer Cell Ig-like Receptor (KIR, previously called p58 KIR, cl-6, NKAT2 or KIR-K7), which recognizes class I MHC molecules (HLA-Cw1, -Cw3, -Cw7, and Cw8). KIR2DL3 inhibits the activity of NK cells thus preventing cell lysis.