Abstract
Interferon-γ (IFN-γ) has a critical role in immune responses to intracellular bacterial infection. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important in the regulation of innate and adaptive immunity. However, whether miRNAs can directly target IFN-γ and regulate IFN-γ production post-transcriptionally remains unknown. Here we show that infection of mice with Listeria monocytogenes or Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) downregulated miR-29 expression in IFN-γ-producing natural killer cells, CD4+ T cells and CD8+ T cells. Moreover, miR-29 suppressed IFN-γ production by directly targeting IFN-γ mRNA. We developed mice with transgenic expression of a 'sponge' target to compete with endogenous miR-29 targets (GS29 mice). We found higher serum concentrations of IFN-γ and lower L. monocytogenes burdens in L. monocytogenes–infected GS29 mice than in their littermates. GS29 mice had enhanced T helper type 1 (TH1) responses and greater resistance to infection with BCG or Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Therefore, miR-29 suppresses immune responses to intracellular pathogens by targeting IFN-γ.
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Change history
04 April 2014
In the version of this supplementary file originally posted online, the curves for the isotype-matched control antibodies in the plots for CD44 and CD62L in Supplementary Figure 7 were incorrect. The error has been corrected in this file as of 4 April 2014.
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Acknowledgements
We thank T. Chen, J. Hou and C. Han for discussions; Y. Li and M. Jin for technical support; C. Ni for pathological analysis; and H. Shen (University of Pennsylvania School of medicine) for L. monocytogenes. Supported by the National Key Basic Research Program of China (2007CB512403 and 2009CB521902), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (30721091, 30731160623), the Shanghai Committee of Science and Technology (10dz1910300) and the National High Biotechnology Development Program of China (2009ZX09503-003, 2009ZX09503-023).
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X.C. and F.M. designed the experiments; F.M., S.X., X.L., Q.Z., X.X., M.L., M.H., N.L. and H.Y. did the experiments; and X.C., F.M. and S.X. wrote the manuscript.
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Ma, F., Xu, S., Liu, X. et al. The microRNA miR-29 controls innate and adaptive immune responses to intracellular bacterial infection by targeting interferon-γ. Nat Immunol 12, 861–869 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni.2073
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ni.2073
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