1. Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Departments of Pathology and of Developmental Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
2. Program in Immunology, Stanford University, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
3. Department of Comparative Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA
4. Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
5. Present addresses: Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA (M.M.W., J.R.N.); Department of Immunohematology and Blood Transfusion, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden 2300 RC, The Netherlands (K.C.-B.).

Correspondence to: Gerald R. Crabtree^1,2 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to G.R.C. (Email: crabtree@stanford.edu).

Abstract

At critical times in development, cells are able to convert graded signals into discrete developmental outcomes; however, the mechanisms involved are poorly understood. During thymocyte development, cell fate is determined by signals originating from the T-cell receptor. Low-affinity/avidity interactions between the T-cell receptor and peptide–MHC complexes direct differentiation to the single-positive stage (positive selection), whereas high-affinity/avidity interactions induce death by apoptosis (negative selection)^{1, 2}. Here we show that mice deficient in both calcineurin and nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT)c2/c3 lack a population of preselection thymocytes with enhanced ability to activate the mitogen-activated protein kinase (Raf–MEK–ERK) pathway, and fail to undergo positive selection. This defect can be partially rescued with constitutively active Raf, indicating that calcineurin controls MAPK signalling. Analysis of mice deficient in both Bim (which is required for negative selection) and calcineurin revealed that calcineurin-induced ERK (extracellular signal-regulated kinase) sensitization is required for differentiation in response to 'weak' positive selecting signals but not in response to 'strong' negative selecting signals (which normally induce apoptosis). These results indicate that early calcineurin/NFAT signalling produces a developmental period of ERK hypersensitivity, allowing very weak signals to induce positive selection. This mechanism might be generally useful in the discrimination of graded signals that induce different cell fates.

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