PLZF expression maps the early stages of ILC1 lineage development. Mus musculus

Diverse populations of natural killer cells, which exert critical early cytolytic functions against virally infected cells, have recently been uncovered, raising issues of lineage relationships. We used expression of the transcription factor PLZF to identify the developmental intermediates of ILC1s, a subset of natural killer-like cells that are particularly abundant in the liver, and demonstrated a distinct precursor but parallel development and partial overlap with established classical NK stages. Using microarray analysis, we defined a set of PLZF-dependent genes that contributed to the lineage divergence between ILC1s and classical NK cells. Overall design: Liver lymphocytes from pools of PLZF+/+ or PLZF-/- mice were sorted into ILC1s and cNKs for RNA isolation and Illumina expression profiling.

近年来，研究人员发现了多种可对病毒感染细胞发挥关键早期溶细胞功能的自然杀伤细胞（natural killer, NK）亚群，这一发现引出了关于其谱系关系的诸多研究议题。本研究借助转录因子PLZF的表达特征，鉴定出1型固有淋巴细胞（Innate Lymphoid Cells 1, ILC1）的发育中间体细胞——该类类自然杀伤细胞亚群在肝脏中富集程度极高；研究同时证实存在一类独特的前体细胞，其发育进程与经典NK细胞平行，且与已确立的经典NK细胞发育阶段存在部分重叠。通过基因芯片（microarray）分析，我们确定了一系列参与1型固有淋巴细胞与经典NK细胞谱系分化的PLZF依赖型基因。
实验设计：将PLZF野生型（PLZF+/+）与PLZF敲除型（PLZF-/-）小鼠的混合肝脏淋巴细胞分选得到1型固有淋巴细胞与经典NK细胞，提取总RNA后进行因美纳（Illumina）表达谱分析。