Project description:We investigated the binding of RARa and BATF to the chromatin of activated CD8 T cells. Distnctive and co-binding of the two factors in RA-depletd and replte conditions were revealed.
Project description:The transcription factor BATF is required for Th17 and TFH differentiation. Here, we show that BATF also has a fundamental role in regulating effector CD8+ T cell differentiation. BATF-deficient CD8+ T cells show profound defects in effector expansion and undergo proliferative and metabolic catastrophe early after antigen encounter. BATF, together with IRF4 and Jun proteins, binds to and promotes early expression of genes encoding lineage-specific transcription-factors (T-bet and Blimp-1) and cytokine receptors, while paradoxically repressing genes encoding effector molecules (IFNg and granzyme B). Thus, BATF amplifies TCR-dependent transcription factor expression and augments inflammatory signal propagation but restrains effector gene expression. This checkpoint prevents irreversible commitment to an effector fate until a critical threshold of downstream transcriptional activity has been achieved. This is an examination of 5 different transcription factors (TFs) with 5 different histone modifications in effector CD8+ T cells. Two of the TFs (BATF and IRF4) and the histone modifications were replicated. Appropriate control sequence files for ChIP input, IgG ChIP, and Total H3 are also included.
Project description:The transcription factor BATF is required for Th17 and TFH differentiation. Here, we show that BATF also has a fundamental role in regulating effector CD8+ T cell differentiation. BATF-deficient CD8+ T cells show profound defects in effector expansion and undergo proliferative and metabolic catastrophe early after antigen encounter. BATF, together with IRF4 and Jun proteins, binds to and promotes early expression of genes encoding lineage-specific transcription-factors (T-bet and Blimp-1) and cytokine receptors, while paradoxically repressing genes encoding effector molecules (IFNg and granzyme B). Thus, BATF amplifies TCR-dependent transcription factor expression and augments inflammatory signal propagation but restrains effector gene expression. This checkpoint prevents irreversible commitment to an effector fate until a critical threshold of downstream transcriptional activity has been achieved. P14 TCR transgenic CD8+ T cells from wild-type or BATF-/- mice were examined either as naïve cells or after 3 days of in vitro stimulation with antibodies to CD3 and CD28 in the presence of IL-2
Project description:In cancer, tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) often differentiate into dysfunctional states, re-sembling exhausted T cells that arise in chronic viral infections. The dysfunctional state of exhaustion in CD8 T cells is characterized by diminished effector function, namely decreased cytotoxic activity and reduced expression of effector molecules, such as granzyme B. BATF is a transcription factor (TF) known to promote the differentiation of effector CD8 T cells in the chronic viral infection model; however, its role in cancer is not well studied. Using bulk RNA-sequencing (bulk RNA-seq), we identified that BATF-overexpression in tumor-specific CD8 T cells exhibited enrichment for a gene set upregulated in early effector CD8 T cells compared to late exhausted CD8 T cells. Notably, BATF overexpression enhanced the gene expression of various activation markers, costimulatory molecules, effector molecules, chemokine receptors, and other transcription factors, including Hif1a. Additionally, GSEA analysis revealed that BATF-overexpressing CD8 T cells were negatively enriched for Reactome pathways of cellular responses to stress as well as stress-induced senescence. Collectively, our findings support BATF as a key regulator of effector CD8 T cell activity and function within the tumor and shed light on potential pathways BATF may upregulate to facilitate effective tumor control.
Project description:<p>The efficacy of the adaptive immune response declines dramatically with age, but the cell-intrinsic mechanisms driving the changes characteristic of immune aging in humans remain poorly understood. One hallmark of immune aging is the loss of self-renewing naive cells and the accumulation of differentiated but dysfunctional cells within the CD8 T cell compartment. Using ATAC-seq, we first inferred the transcription factor binding activities that maintain the naive and central and effector memory CD8 T cell states in young adults. Integrating our results with RNA-seq, we determined that BATF, ETS1, Eomes, and Sp1 govern transcription networks associated with specific CD8 T cell subset properties, including activation and proliferative potential. Extending our analysis to aged humans, we found that the differences between memory and naive CD8 T cells were largely preserved across age, but that naive and central memory cells from older individuals exhibited a shift toward a more differentiated pattern of chromatin openness. Additionally, aged naive cells displayed a loss in chromatin openness at gene promoters, a phenomenon that appears to be due largely to a loss in binding by NRF1, leading to a marked drop-off in the ability of the naive cell to initiate transcription of mitochondrial genes. Our findings identify BATF- and NRF1-driven gene regulation as targets for delaying CD8 T cell aging and restoring T cell function.</p>
Project description:The response of naive CD8+ T cells to their cognate antigen involves rapid and broad changes in gene expression that are coupled with extensive chromatin remodeling, but the mechanisms governing these changes are not fully understood. In this study, we investigated how this process depends on the activity of the basic leucine zipper ATF-like transcription factor Batf, which is essential for the earliest phase of effector CD8+ T cell differentiation. Through genome scale profiling of multiple modalities, we characterized the role of Batf in chromatin organization at several levels, including the accessibility of key regulatory regions, the expression of nearby genes, and the interactions these regions make with each other and with key transcription factors. We quantified the dependencies between Batf and other transcription factors and identified a core transcription factor network that cooperated with Batf, including Irf4, and the transcription factors Runx3 and T-bet, which tended to co-localize with Batf and bind in regions whose accessibility and long-range interactions were mediated by Batf. We functionally demonstrated the synergistic activity of this network in initiating aspects of the effector T cells’ transcriptional and chromatin accessibility profiles in an ectopically-induced fibroblast system. Using HiChIP, we further found that overexpressing all four factors in fibroblasts was required to recapitulate important aspects of the CD8+ T cell chromatin architecture. Our results provided a comprehensive resource for studying the epigenomic and transcriptomic landscape of effector differentiation of cytotoxic T cells and suggested various modes of dependencies between transcription factors in this process.