Journal article

Thymic iNKT single cell analyses unmask the common developmental program of mouse innate T cells

S Harsha Krovi, J Zhang, MJ Michaels-Foster, T Brunetti, L Loh, J Scott-Browne, L Gapin

Nature Communications | NATURE PORTFOLIO | Published : 2020

Open access

Abstract

Most T lymphocytes leave the thymus as naïve cells with limited functionality. However, unique populations of innate-like T cells differentiate into functionally distinct effector subsets during their development in the thymus. Here, we profiled >10,000 differentiating thymic invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells using single-cell RNA sequencing to produce a comprehensive transcriptional landscape that highlights their maturation, function, and fate decisions at homeostasis. Our results reveal transcriptional profiles that are broadly shared between iNKT and mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells, illustrating a common core developmental program. We further unmask a mutual requirement..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by National Institutes of Health


Funding Acknowledgements

We thank members of our laboratories for thoughtful discussions and critical comments on the manuscript; Jennifer Matsuda and Leslie Berg for critical comments and support; the Flow Core and the University of Colorado flow cytometry shared resource facility for assistance with cell sorting; the Genomics and Microarray core at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical campus for scRNA-Seq and ATAC-seq and the National Institutes of Health core facility for CD1d and MR1-tetramers. This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants AI135339 and AI130198 (to L.G.); The Cancer Center Support Grant P30CA046934.