Pandurangan Vijayanand, Mitchell Kronenberg, Ashu Sethi, Mallory Paynich Murray, Jason A. Greenbaum, Ashmitaa Logandha Ramamoorthy Premlal, Sara Herrera-de la Mata, Isaac Engel, James P. Scott-Browne, Sandy Lucette Rosales, Grégory Seumois, and Goo-Young Seo
Invariant natural killer T cells (iNKT cells) differentiate into thymic and peripheral NKT1, NKT2 and NKT17 subsets. Here we use RNA-seq and ATAC-seq analyses and show iNKT subsets are similar, regardless of tissue location. Lung iNKT cell subsets possess the most distinct location-specific features, shared with other innate lymphocytes in the lung, possibly consistent with increased activation. Following antigenic stimulation, iNKT cells undergo chromatin and transcriptional changes delineating two populations: one similar to follicular helper T cells and the other NK or effector like. Phenotypic analysis indicates these changes are observed long-term, suggesting that iNKT cells gene programs are not fixed, but they are capable of chromatin remodeling after antigen to give rise to additional subsets., Invariant natural killer T cells are known to be composed of a number of phenotypic and functionally distinct populations. Here the authors use transcriptomic and epigenomic analysis to further characterize the peripheral iNKT compartment before and after antigenic stimulation.