Transcriptional Regulation by NFATc1 during murine thymocyte development [BirA RNA-seq]

In thymus hematopoietic precursor cells differentiate into αβ T cells, γδ T cells, mucosa-associated invariant T cells (MAIT), and natural killer T (NKT) cells. We show that both ablation of NFATc1 or its induction during the DN stages of thymocyte development leads to an almost normal thymocyte development but a marked increase in γδ T cells. The γδ cells deficient for NFATc1 acquire an NKT γδ cell phenotype that exhibits the expression of CD4 co-receptor, the NK1.1 marker, the augmented usage of the Vγ1.1 and Vδ6.3 segments, and an increased in IL4 and IFN-γ production. Transcriptom analysis of isolated CD4-CD8- double negative thymocytes. BirA cells express normal levels of NFATc1 while Nc1Bio overexpress NFATc1 from one copy of a BAC transgene containing the whole murine Nfatc1 gene locus. For both settings triplicates were analysed