Project description:The transcription factor Thpok is essential for CD4 T cell development in the thymus and remains expressed in post-thymic CD4 T cells. We post-thymically inactivated Thpok and compared microarray gene expression in Thpok-deficient CD4 T cells to that in their wildtype CD4 or CD8 counterparts We show that Thpok constrains the transcriptional circuitry to maintain CD4+-lineage integrity in naM-CM-/ve cells and to couple effector differentiation to environmental cues after antigenic stimulation. Redundantly with the related factor LRF, Thpok is continuously needed to prevent the trans-differentiation of mature CD4+ into -CD8+ T cells. We activated naM-CM-/ve CD4 T cells (either wild-type or Thpok-deficient) and CD8 T cells (wild-type) in vitro under Th1 conditions. Differentiated effectors were sorted 4 days after activation into CD4+CD8- and CD4-CD8+ (wild-type) and CD4+CD8- and CD4+CD8+ (Thpok-deficient) subsets. Total RNA was extracted from sorted subsets and processed for microarray analyses (Affymetrix Mouse Exon 1.0 ST array) at the NCI microarray facility, following the manufacturerM-bM-^@M-^Ys recommendation. Data is from 3 replicates (except wild-type CD4-CD8+ cells, for which two samples only were processed), generated from two distinct cell preparations.
Project description:The aim of this study was to investigate the transcriptome of 35 primary samples of pediatric patients diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia and 6 samples of healthy T-cell precursor subsets from pediatric donors (3 samples of CD34+ and 3 samples of CD4+ CD8+ thymic subsets). Samples were collected before treatment. Sequencing libraries were obtained with Illumina TruSeq Stranded mRNA protocol, with modified conditions of RNA fragmentation (90°C for 2 minutes). All libraries were sequenced on Illumina NovaSeq6000 platform, in 2x150PE mode (paired end sequencing with 150 nt reads), with a coverage of 150M reads/sample.
Project description:The Tec-family kinase Itk plays an important role during T-cell activation and function, and controls also conventional versus innate-like T-cell development. We have characterized the transcriptome of Itk-deficient CD3+ T-cells, including CD4+ and CD8+ subsets, using Affymetrix microarrays. The largest difference between Itk-/- and Wt CD3+ T-cells was found in unstimulated cells, e.g. for killer cell lectin-like receptors. Compared to anti-CD3-stimulation, anti-CD3/CD28 significantly decreased the number of transcripts suggesting that the CD28 co-stimulatory pathway is mainly independent of Itk. The signatures of CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell subsets identified a greater differential expression than in total CD3+ cells. Cyclosporin (CsA)-treatment had a stronger effect on transcriptional regulation than Itk-deficiency, suggesting that only a fraction of TCR-mediated calcineurin/NFAT-activation is dependent on Itk. Bioinformatic analysis of NFAT-sites of the group of transcripts similarly regulated by Itk-deficiency and CsA-treatment, followed by chromatin-immunoprecipitation, revealed NFATc1-binding to the Bub1, IL7R, Ctla2a, Ctla2b, and Schlafen1 genes. Finally, to identify transcripts that are regulated by Tec-family kinases in general, we compared the expression profile of Itk-deficient T-cells with that of Btk-deficient B-cells and a common set of transcripts was found. Taken together, our study provides a general overview about the global transcriptional changes in the absence of Itk. Experiment Overall Design: CD3+ CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells from pooled suspensions of spleen and lymph nodes of Wt and Itk knockout mice on C57BL/6 background were isolated after negative depletion. Unstimulated as well as stimulated T-cells were studied. Stimulations were done with anti-CD3 (1 mg/ml) for 24 hrs. For the CD4+ T-cells we collected triplicates from the Itk knockout mice and duplicates from the Wt group. For the CD8+ T-cells, we got duplicates from Itk knockout , while we obtained a single sample from Wt owing to the low cell yield for resting Wt CD8+ T-cells. After CD3-stimulation we got a single sample from the CD8+ subset of both Wt and Itk knockout, while for the CD4+ subsets we collected duplicates.