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Updated: Apr 17, 2026

Purification and Expansion of Mouse Invariant Natural Killer T Cells for in vitro and in vivo Studies
Published on: February 15, 2021
Stages versus subsets: Invariant Natural Killer T cell lineage differentiation
Heather M Buechel1, Martin H Stradner2, Louise M D'Cruz1
1University of Pittsburgh, Department of Immunology, Biomedical Science Tower, 200 Lothrop St, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, United States.
None:
Invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) cells represent a population of innate T lymphocytes which act as 'first-responders' to infection. While they have long been considered a versatile cell, capable of secretion of multiple cytokines upon activation, recent evidence now indicates that distinct lineages of iNKT cells with unique transcriptional and cytokine profiles exist in different peripheral tissue and as such represent 'fine-tuning' of these cells, which act as mediators between the innate and adaptive immune systems. Here we discuss the molecules regulating the differentiation of iNKT cell lineages, the transcription factors associated with their development, and the role of E protein transcription factors and their negative regulators the Id proteins, as these cells develop from immature progenitor cells to terminally differentiated cells in peripheral tissue.
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