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Immunology

PTEN checkMAITs type-17 innate-like T cells

Nature Cell Biology volume 24, pages 1565–1567 (2022)Cite this article

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PTEN, a tumour suppressor, also regulates T cell activation. A new study reports that PTEN acts as a cell-intrinsic rheostat linking TCR- and IL-23-mediated signalling to regulate development of type-17 innate-like T cells in the thymus. This work may have important implications for treating autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

Phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) is a tumour-suppressor lipid phosphatase that prevents tumorigenesis by counteracting the signalling pathway mediated by the lipid kinase phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)1. In T cells, PTEN-mediated antagonism of the PI3K pathway is critical for regulating T cell activation and tolerance2. T-cell-specific loss of PTEN in mice leads to T cell lymphomas originating from the thymus3, whereas PTEN germline mutations in humans are associated with high risk for disorders including tumorigenesis and autoimmunity, collectively known as the PTEN hamartoma tumour syndrome (PHTS)4.

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Fig. 1: Schematic depicting the role of PTEN in the two-step differentiation of type-17 innate-like T cells in the thymus.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by US National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants R01CA238263, R01CA229784 and R01CA212605 (V.A.B.) and by grants from JDRF (International 1-INO-2002-1119-A-N) and Sanofi (iAwards SRA 2020-0033) (N.P.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Hematology-Oncology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Nikolaos Patsoukis & Vassiliki A. Boussiotis

  2. Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Nikolaos Patsoukis & Vassiliki A. Boussiotis

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  1. Nikolaos Patsoukis
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  2. Vassiliki A. Boussiotis
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Correspondence to Nikolaos Patsoukis or Vassiliki A. Boussiotis.

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Competing interests

V.A.B. has patents on the PD-1 pathway licensed by Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, Merck, EMD-Serono, Boehringer Ingelheim, AstraZeneca, Novartis and Dako. The authors declare no other competing interests.

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Patsoukis, N., Boussiotis, V.A. PTEN checkMAITs type-17 innate-like T cells. Nat Cell Biol 24, 1565–1567 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-022-01012-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-022-01012-9

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