| First Author | D'Cruz LM | Year | 2010 |
| Journal | Nat Immunol | Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 3 | Pages | 240-9 |
| PubMed ID | 20154672 | Mgi Jnum | J:158593 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:4439210 | Doi | 10.1038/ni.1845 |
| Citation | D'Cruz LM, et al. (2010) An essential role for the transcription factor HEB in thymocyte survival, Tcra rearrangement and the development of natural killer T cells. Nat Immunol 11(3):240-9 |
| abstractText | E proteins are basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors that regulate many key aspects of lymphocyte development. Thymocytes express multiple E proteins that are thought to provide cooperative and compensatory functions crucial for T cell differentiation. Contrary to that, we report here that the E protein HEB was uniquely required at the CD4(+)CD8(+) double-positive (DP) stage of T cell development. Thymocytes lacking HEB showed impaired survival, failed to make rearrangements of variable-alpha (V(alpha)) segments to distal joining-alpha (J(alpha)) segments in the gene encoding the T cell antigen receptor alpha-chain (Tcra) and had a profound, intrinsic block in the development of invariant natural killer T cells (iNKT cells) at their earliest progenitor stage. Thus, our results show that HEB is a specific and essential factor in T cell development and in the generation of the iNKT cell lineage, defining a unique role for HEB in the regulation of lymphocyte maturation. |
