Early growth response gene-2 (Egr-2) regulates the development of B and T cells
Understanding of how transcription factors are involved in lymphocyte development still remains a challenge. It has been shown that Egr-2 deficiency results in impaired NKT cell development and defective positive selection of T cells. Here we investigated the development of T, B and NKT cells in Egr...
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Published in | PloS one Vol. 6; no. 4; p. e18498 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Public Library of Science
14.04.2011
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Understanding of how transcription factors are involved in lymphocyte development still remains a challenge. It has been shown that Egr-2 deficiency results in impaired NKT cell development and defective positive selection of T cells. Here we investigated the development of T, B and NKT cells in Egr-2 transgenic mice and the roles in the regulation of distinct stages of B and T cell development.
The expression of Egr1, 2 and 3 were analysed at different stages of T and B cell development by RT-PCT and results showed that the expression was strictly regulated at different stages. Forced expression of Egr-2 in CD2(+) lymphocytes resulted in a severe reduction of CD4(+)CD8(+) (DP) cells in thymus and pro-B cells in bone marrow, which was associated with reduced expression of Notch1 in ISP thymocytes and Pax5 in pro-B cells, suggesting that retraction of Egr-2 at the ISP and pro-B cell stages is important for the activation of lineage differentiation programs. In contrast to reduction of DP and pro-B cells, Egr-2 enhanced the maturation of DP cells into single positive (SP) T and NKT cells in thymus, and immature B cells into mature B cells in bone marrow.
Our results demonstrate that Egr-2 expressed in restricted stages of lymphocyte development plays a dynamic, but similar role for the development of T, NKT and B cells. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Conceived and designed the experiments: SL AS BZ ML MR TM PW. Performed the experiments: SL AS BZ ML MR TM PW. Analyzed the data: SL AS BZ ML MR TM PW. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SL PW. Wrote the paper: SL AS BZ PW. |
ISSN: | 1932-6203 1932-6203 |
DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0018498 |