Differential activation of human ILC2s by IL-25 and IL-33

The epithelial cell derived cytokines IL-25 and IL-33 can both activate type 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s). It is not known whether the actions of these cytokines on ILC2s are similar or divergent. To investigate this we performed in vitro culture of human ILC2s with a variety of cytokine combinations including IL-2, IL-7, IL-25 and IL-33. Transcriptome profiling of these different condtions allowed us to assess the impact on gene expression of the different treatments. The results show that IL-25 and IL-33 promote divergent gene expression programs indicating that differential expression of these cytokines can cause diverse ILC2 effector function. Human ILC2s were cultured for 7 days in the presence of 6 different cytokine combinations. Three biological replicates.

上皮细胞来源的细胞因子白细胞介素-25（IL-25）与白细胞介素-33（IL-33）均可激活2型天然淋巴细胞（type 2 innate lymphoid cells，ILC2s）。目前尚不清楚这两种细胞因子对ILC2s的作用模式是否相似或存在分化差异。为探究该科学问题，我们采用包含白细胞介素-2（IL-2）、白细胞介素-7（IL-7）、IL-25及IL-33在内的多种细胞因子组合，对人源ILC2s开展体外培养。通过对不同培养条件下的样本进行转录组分析，我们得以评估不同处理方案对基因表达的影响。研究结果显示，IL-25与IL-33可诱导产生截然不同的基因表达程序，表明这两种细胞因子的差异化调控可引发ILC2s效应功能的多样性。本实验中，人源ILC2s在6种不同细胞因子组合的培养体系中培养7天，共设置3次生物学重复。