BATF regulates innate lymphoid cell hematopoiesis and homeostasis

Early hematopoietic progenitors undergo sophisticated developmental processes to become committed innate lymphoid cell (ILC) progenitors and ultimately mature ILC subsets in the periphery. Basic leucine zipper ATF-like transcription factor (Batf) plays important roles in lymphocyte biology. We report here that Batf regulates the production of bone marrow ILC progenitors and maintenance of peripheral ILCs. The expression of Batf is induced during ILC development at the α-lymphoid progenitor stage in response to the cytokine IL-7. As a potential mechanism, up-regulated Batf binds and activates transcription of the Nfil3 gene to promote ILC hematopoiesis. Batf is necessary to maintain normal numbers of early and late ILC progenitors in the bone marrow and mature ILC1, ILC2, ILC3, and NK cells in most peripheral tissues. Batf deficiency causes ILC lymphopenia, leading to defective ILC responses to inflammatory cytokines and defective immunity to enteric bacterial infections. Thus, Batf plays critical roles in bone marrow hematopoiesis, peripheral homeostasis, and effector functions of ILCs.