1. Academic Validation
  2. Oleic acid availability impacts thymocyte preprogramming and subsequent peripheral Treg cell differentiation

Oleic acid availability impacts thymocyte preprogramming and subsequent peripheral Treg cell differentiation

  • Nat Immunol. 2023 Dec 7. doi: 10.1038/s41590-023-01672-1.
Liangyu Lin # 1 Mingyuan Hu # 1 Qing Li 1 Liming Du 1 Li Lin 2 Yueqing Xue 1 Fanjun Zheng 1 Fei Wang 1 Keli Liu 2 Yu Wang 1 Jiayin Ye 1 Xu Jiang 1 Xuefeng Wang 1 Jiaqi Wang 1 Jingjie Zhai 1 Benming Liu 1 Hongzhen Xie 1 Yanqin You 3 Jinyong Wang 4 Xiangyin Kong 1 Dechun Feng 1 Douglas R Green 5 Yufang Shi 6 7 Ying Wang 8
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 CAS Key Laboratory of Tissue Microenvironment and Tumor, Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
  • 2 School of Life Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China.
  • 3 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, First Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China.
  • 4 Institute for Stem Cell and Regeneration, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
  • 5 Department of Immunology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
  • 6 CAS Key Laboratory of Tissue Microenvironment and Tumor, Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China. yfshi@suda.edu.cn.
  • 7 The Third Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, State Key Laboratory of Radiation Medicine and Protection, Institutes for Translational Medicine, Soochow University, Suzhou, China. yfshi@suda.edu.cn.
  • 8 CAS Key Laboratory of Tissue Microenvironment and Tumor, Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China. yingwang@sibs.ac.cn.
  • # Contributed equally.
Abstract

The nature of activation signals is essential in determining T cell subset differentiation; however, the features that determine T cell subset preference acquired during intrathymic development remain elusive. Here we show that naive CD4+ T cells generated in the mouse thymic microenvironment lacking Scd1, encoding the Enzyme catalyzing oleic acid (OA) production, exhibit enhanced regulatory T (Treg) cell differentiation and attenuated development of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. Scd1 deletion in K14+ thymic epithelia recapitulated the enhanced Treg cell differentiation phenotype of Scd1-deficient mice. The dearth of OA permitted DOT1L to increase H3K79me2 levels at the Atp2a2 locus of thymocytes at the DN2-DN3 transition stage. Such epigenetic modification persisted in naive CD4+ T cells and facilitated Atp2a2 expression. Upon T cell receptor activation, ATP2A2 enhanced the activity of the calcium-NFAT1-Foxp3 axis to promote naive CD4+ T cells to differentiate into Treg cells. Therefore, OA availability is critical for preprogramming thymocytes with Treg cell differentiation propensities in the periphery.

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