Single-cell RNA-sequencing data and functional analysis revealed that ACC1, a rate limiting enzyme of fatty acid biosynthesis, is responsible for survival of thymic iNKT cells.

Invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) cells are a unique subset of T lymphocytes with a memory like phenotype which express invariant T cell receptor (TCR) chain comprised of a Vα14-Jα18 rearrangement in mice. In the present study, we characterize the transcriptomes of thymic iNKT cells at the single cell level to reveal the underlying metabolic adaptation that exists over the course of iNKT cell development. Thymic CD1d tetramer+ iNKT cells were collected with Magnetic cell sorting (MACS). Then, CD3+CD1d tetramer+ iNKT cells were collected with cell sorter for scRNA-seq library preparation.