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Updated: May 14, 2026

Purification and Expansion of Mouse Invariant Natural Killer T Cells for in vitro and in vivo Studies
Published on: February 15, 2021
Transcriptional regulation of the NKT cell lineage
Michael G Constantinides1, Albert Bendelac
1Committee on Immunology and Department of Pathology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
Abstract:
How expression of canonical semi-invariant TCRs leads to innate-like effector differentiation is a central enigma of NKT cell development. NKT thymic precursors undergo elevated TCR signals leading to increased Egr2, which directly induces their signature transcription factor, PLZF. PLZF is necessary and sufficient to induce a multipotent, unbiased effector program that precedes terminal differentiation into T-bet(high) NK1.1(+) (NKT1) cells and recently identified NKT2 and NKT17 sublineages. Major variations in polarized NKT sublineages have been uncovered in different mouse strains and in several mutants, with direct impact on NKT cell function but also, unexpectedly, on the development and function of conventional T cells.
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