The transcription factor PLZF (Zbtb16) directs the effector program of the NKT cell lineage
By A. Savage, Michael G. Constantinides, Jin Han, D. Picard, Emmanuel Martin, Bofeng Li, O. Lantz, A. Bendelac. Immunity, 2008
735 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Summary The transcriptional control of CD1d-restricted NKT cell development has remained elusive. We report that PLZF (promyelocytic leukemia zinc finger; Zbtb16), a member of the BTB/POZ-ZF family of transcription factors which includes the CD4 lineage-specific c-Krox (Th-POK, Zbtb7b), is exquisitely specific to CD1d-restricted NKT cells and human MR1-specific MAIT cells. PLZF was induced immediately after positive selection of NKT cell precursors and PLZF-deficient NKT cells failed to undergo the intrathymic expansion and effector differentiation that characterize their lineage. Instead, they preserved a naïve phenotype and were directed to lymph nodes. Conversely, transgenic expression of PLZF induced CD4 thymocytes to acquire effector differentiation and migrate to non-lymphoid tissues. We suggest that PLZF is a transcriptional signature of NKT cells that directs their innate-like effector differentiation during thymic development.
Subfields: Hematology, Immunology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d97e55d3b5983f4e7905bcd9c3d3095a903055f2
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In Immunology
Citations in the corpus
- Raising the NKT cell family (2010, background): “Two recent studies have demonstrated that the NKT cell developmental pathway is under control of the transcription factor PLZ”