Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Seeland, Isabel
• Xiong, Ying
• Orlik, Christian
• Deibel, Daniel
• Prokosch, Sandra
• Küblbeck, Günter
• Jahraus, Beate
• De Stefano, Daniela
• Moos, Sonja
• Kurschus, Florian C
• Arnold, Bernd
• Samstag, Yvonne
• Bhandoola, Avinash

Titel

The actin remodeling protein cofilin is crucial for thymic αβ but not γδ T-cell development

Ist Teil von

• PLoS biology, 2018-07, Vol.16 (7), p.e2005380-e2005380

Ort / Verlag

United States: Public Library of Science

Erscheinungsjahr

2018

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Cofilin is an essential actin remodeling protein promoting depolymerization and severing of actin filaments. To address the relevance of cofilin for the development and function of T cells in vivo, we generated knock-in mice in which T-cell-specific nonfunctional (nf) cofilin was expressed instead of wild-type (WT) cofilin. Nf cofilin mice lacked peripheral αβ T cells and showed a severe thymus atrophy. This was caused by an early developmental arrest of thymocytes at the double negative (DN) stage. Importantly, even though DN thymocytes expressed the TCRβ chain intracellularly, they completely lacked TCRβ surface expression. In contrast, nf cofilin mice possessed normal numbers of γδ T cells. Their functionality was confirmed in the γδ T-cell-driven, imiquimod (IMQ)-induced, psoriasis-like murine model. Overall, this study not only highlights the importance of cofilin for early αβ T-cell development but also shows for the first time that an actin-binding protein is differentially involved in αβ versus γδ T-cell development.