Abstract

During thymocyte development, immature thymocytes that express both CD4 and CD8 genes must choose either a helper CD4⁺ or cytotoxic CD8⁺ T-cell fate. Over the past two years, there have been some important advances regarding T-cell lineage choice, including the identification of transcription factors required for CD4 gene silencing by CD8-lineage cells (RUNX3) or for CD4⁺ T-cell differentiation (GATA3), and a better understanding of how T-cell receptor (TCR) signalling correlates CD4/CD8-lineage differentiation to MHC specificity. This review summarizes these recent advances and highlights potential links between TCR signals and nuclear effectors of lineage differentiation.

Author affiliations

1. Laboratory of Immune Cell Biology, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
   Email: remy@helix.nih.gov

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