Hematopoietic cell signal transducer (HCST, also known as DAP10) is a transmembrane adaptor that associates with an activation receptor, NKG2D, which is found on NK and subsets of T cells. The ligands for this receptor include MHC class I chain-related (MIC) protein A and protein B and UL16-binding proteins []. In activated mouse natural killer (NK) cells, the NKG2D receptor associates with two intracellular adaptors, DAP10 and DAP12, which trigger phosphatidyl inositol 3 kinase (PI3K) and Syk family protein tyrosine kinases, respectively. It has been suggested that the DAP10-PI3K pathway is sufficient to initiate NKG2D-mediated killing of target cells [].
