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Single line or parallel lines: NK cell differentiation driven by T-bet and Eomes

Cellular & Molecular Immunology volume 9, pages 193–194 (2012)Cite this article

Natural killer (NK) cells, like T and B cells, are an important subset of immune cells, and contribute to innate immunity based on quick and direct cytotoxicty to tumors, viral infected cells and stressed cells without pre-stimulation.1, 2 Great advances have been made in dividing immune cells into distinct developmental and functional subgroups by transcription factors and typical surface markers during the last 20 years, but the developmental pathway of NK cells is still not as clear as that of T or B cells.3, 4, 5

In a recent issue of Immunity, Gordon et al. defined transcription factors T-bet and Eomes as two sequential, genetically separable checkpoints of NK cell maturation.6 T-bet was essential for developmental stability of immature NK cells, while Eomes was required for NK cell maturation. Thus single deficiency of T-bet or Eomes leads to loss of non-overlapping NK cell subsets, respectively, and NK cells were absolutely deficient in T-bet and Eomes double knockout mice though NK precursor (NKP) seems to be unaffected. The research unveiled distinctive roles of T-bet and Eomes in NK cell development, but also raised some questions for further discussion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, Hefei, China

    Xiaojun Jiang, Yonglin Chen & Zhigang Tian

  2. Department of Immunology, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

    Hui Peng & Zhigang Tian

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  1. Xiaojun Jiang
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  2. Yonglin Chen
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  3. Hui Peng
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  4. Zhigang Tian
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Correspondence to Zhigang Tian.

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Jiang, X., Chen, Y., Peng, H. et al. Single line or parallel lines: NK cell differentiation driven by T-bet and Eomes. Cell Mol Immunol 9, 193–194 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/cmi.2012.8

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