Altered transcriptional programming in Nur77-GFPhi naïve CD8 T cells

Naive T cells experience accumulation of TCR signaling in response to self-antigens in the steady state. However, how these signals influence the responsiveness of naive CD8+ T cells to subsequent agonist TCR stimulation remains incompletely understood. We investigated how naive CD8+ T cells that experienced relatively low or high levels of TCR signaling in response to self-antigens respond to stimulation with foreign antigens. A transcriptional reporter of Nr4a1 (Nur77-GFP) revealed substantial heterogeneity of the amount of TCR signaling naive CD8+ T cells accumulate in the steady state. To further understand the impact of differential TCR signaling on CD8 T cells we performed RNA-seq on naive Nur77-GFPhi and lo populations. Triplicate samples of naive CD8 T cells that were Nur77-GFPhi or lo were isolated by FACS and RNA-seq preformed.