Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 9, 2026

Generation of Induced Regulatory T Cells from Primary Human Naïve and Memory T Cells
Published on: April 16, 2012
Post-transcriptional regulation associated with control of human CD8A expression of CD4+ T cells
M H Gao1, M Walz, P B Kavathas
1Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale University, 333 Cedar St., New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8035, USA.
Abstract:
Lack of expression of a cell surface protein can occur by means of transcriptional and/or post-transcriptional mechanisms. Expression of the CD8A gene has been shown to be regulated by post-transcriptional mechanisms when 1) CD4(-)CD8(lo) thymocytes are blocked from differentiating into CD4(+)CD8(+) cells by TCR crosslinking and 2) upon activation of mature CD8(+) T cells. We demonstrate in this paper that there is also post-transcriptional regulation of CD8A expression in a CD4(+)CD8(-) T-cell line Jurkat. On the basis of northern blotting, mRNA for CD8A was not seen to be present in the Jurkat cells, but the gene was observed to be transcriptionally active in nuclear run-on analysis. In addition, we provide evidence that post-transcriptional mechanisms also contribute to the regulation of CD8A expression in mature CD4(+)CD8(-) T cells, challenging the assumption that the regulation is due solely to transcriptional mechanisms.
Related Concept Videos
Regulation of Expression Occurs at Multiple Steps
Transcription results in the generation of precursor (pre-mRNA) that consists of both exons and introns, which needs further processing before being translated to a...
Combinatorial Gene Control
The expression of more than 30,000 genes is controlled by approximately 2000-3000 transcription factors. This is possible because a single transcription factor can recognize more than one regulatory sequence. The specificity in gene...
Master Transcription Regulators
General Transcription Factors
Regulation of Expression at Multiple Steps
T Cell Activation and Clonal Selection
Naive T cells that have not yet encountered an antigen express two primary CD...

