Clonal expansion and epigenetic inheritance of long-lasting NK cell memory.

ABSTRACT: Clonal expansion of cells with somatically diversified receptors and their long-term maintenance as memory cells is a hallmark of adaptive immunity. Here, we studied pathogen-specific adaptation within the innate immune system, tracking natural killer (NK) cell memory to human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection. Leveraging single-cell multiomic maps of ex vivo NK cells and somatic mitochondrial DNA mutations as endogenous barcodes, we reveal substantial clonal expansion of adaptive NK cells in HCMV⁺ individuals. NK cell clonotypes were characterized by a convergent inflammatory memory signature enriched for AP1 motifs superimposed on a private set of clone-specific accessible chromatin regions. NK cell clones were stably maintained in specific epigenetic states over time, revealin

SUBMITTER: Ruckert T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9663309 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature