Profiling of the chromatin landscape of human natural killer (NK) cells overexpressing the transcription factors T-BET or EOMES

T-BET and EOMES are key transcription factors in the development of mature NK cells in mice. However, the role of these transcription factors during human NK cell development is less well understood. Therefore, we overexpressed T-BET or EOMES in human umbilical cord blood-derived hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPC) and cultured them in vitro in an NK cell differentiation model. On day 21 of culture mature stage 4 (CD56+CD94+CD16-) and stage 5 (CD56+CD94+CD16+) NK cells from T-BET or EOMES overexpression and control cultures were sorted, whereafter genomic DNA was isolated and the chromatin accessibility landscape was determined by assay for transposase-accessible chromatin (ATAC) sequencing. Profiling of the epigenetic changes during T-BET or EOMES overexpression in mature NK cells revealed new insights in the regulatory role of T-BET and EOMES during terminal NK cell maturation. Overall design: Profiling of the chromatin accessibility landscape by Fast-ATAC sequencing of stage 4 and stage 5 NK cells with T-BET or EOMES overexpression in comparison to control NK cells on day 21 of culture.