Tissue-specific shaping of the TCR repertoire and antigen specificity of iNKT cells
- King's College London, United Kingdom
- University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Abstract
Tissue homeostasis is critically dependent on the function of tissue-resident lymphocytes, including lipid-reactive invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells. Yet, if and how the tissue environment shapes the antigen specificity of iNKT cells remains unknown. By analysing iNKT cells from lymphoid tissues of mice and humans we demonstrate that their T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire is highly diverse and is distinct for cells from various tissues resulting in differential lipid-antigen recognition. Within peripheral tissues iNKT cell recent thymic emigrants exhibit a different TCR repertoire than mature cells, suggesting that the iNKT population is shaped after arrival to the periphery. Consistent with this, iNKT cells from different organs show distinct basal activation, proliferation and clonal expansion. Moreover, the iNKT cell TCR repertoire changes following immunisation and is shaped by age and environmental changes. Thus, post-thymic modification of the TCR-repertoire underpins the distinct antigen specificity for iNKT cells in peripheral tissues.
Data availability
The RNAseq data are available in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database with accession number GSE131420.
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Analysis of transcriptomic profile of iNKT cellsNCBI Gene Expression Omnibus, GSE131420.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Medical Research Council (MR/L008157/1)
- Patricia Barral
Marie Curie Intraeuropean Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-2015-703639)
- Rebeca Jimeno
Medical Research Council (DKAA.RRAK18742)
- Graham Anderson
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All animal experiments were approved by the Francis Crick Institute's and the King's College London's Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Body and the United Kingdom Home Office.
Human subjects: Human tissues used in this study were collected with ethical approval from UK Research Ethics Committees administered through the Integrated Research Application System. All samples were collected with informed consent.
Copyright
© 2019, Jimeno et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Tissue-specific shaping of the TCR repertoire and antigen specificity of iNKT cells
eLife 8:e51663.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.51663
Further reading
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- Immunology and Inflammation
As a central hub for metabolism, the liver exhibits strong adaptability to maintain homeostasis in response to food fluctuations throughout evolution. However, the mechanisms governing this resilience remain incompletely understood. In this study, we identified Receptor interacting protein kinase 1 (RIPK1) in hepatocytes as a critical regulator in preserving hepatic homeostasis during metabolic challenges, such as short-term fasting or high-fat dieting. Our results demonstrated that hepatocyte-specific deficiency of RIPK1 sensitized the liver to short-term fasting-induced liver injury and hepatocyte apoptosis in both male and female mice. Despite being a common physiological stressor that typically does not induce liver inflammation, short-term fasting triggered hepatic inflammation and compensatory proliferation in hepatocyte-specific RIPK1-deficient (Ripk1-hepKO) mice. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that short-term fasting oriented the hepatic microenvironment into an inflammatory state in Ripk1-hepKO mice, with up-regulated expression of inflammation and immune cell recruitment-associated genes. Single-cell RNA sequencing further confirmed the altered cellular composition in the liver of Ripk1-hepKO mice during fasting, highlighting the increased recruitment of macrophages to the liver. Mechanically, our results indicated that ER stress was involved in fasting-induced liver injury in Ripk1-hepKO mice. Overall, our findings revealed the role of RIPK1 in maintaining liver homeostasis during metabolic fluctuations and shed light on the intricate interplay between cell death, inflammation, and metabolism.
