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Updated: May 27, 2026

Mouse Naïve CD4+ T Cell Isolation and In vitro Differentiation into T Cell Subsets
Published on: April 16, 2015
Human MAIT and CD8αα cells develop from a pool of type-17 precommitted CD8+ T cells
Lucy J Walker1, Yu-Hoi Kang, Matthew O Smith
1Peter Medawar Building for Pathogen Research, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
None:
Human mucosal associated invariant T (MAIT) CD8(+) and Tc17 cells are important tissue-homing cell populations, characterized by high expression of CD161 ((++)) and type-17 differentiation, but their origins and relationships remain poorly defined. By transcriptional and functional analyses, we demonstrate that a pool of polyclonal, precommitted type-17 CD161(++)CD8αβ(+) T cells exist in cord blood, from which a prominent MAIT cell (TCR Vα7.2(+)) population emerges post-natally. During this expansion, CD8αα T cells appear exclusively within a CD161(++)CD8(+)/MAIT subset, sharing cytokine production, chemokine-receptor expression, TCR-usage, and transcriptional profiles with their CD161(++)CD8αβ(+) counterparts. Our data demonstrate the origin and differentiation pathway of MAIT-cells from a naive type-17 precommitted CD161(++)CD8(+) T-cell pool and the distinct phenotype and function of CD8αα cells in man.
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