As shown by analysis of mice and humans bearing DOCK8-inactivating mutations, DOCK8 plays a cell-autonomous role in survival of naive CD8 T cells, LFA-1 polarization toward the immune synapse, and CD8 T cell memory and recall responses following viral infection.

Immune responses are normally targeted against microbial pathogens and not self-antigens by mechanisms that are only partly understood. Here we define a newly discovered pathway that prevents autoimmunity by limiting the levels on T lymphocytes of aco-stimulatory receptor, the inducible T-cell co-stimulator(ICOS). In sanroque mice homozygous for an M199R mutation in the ROQ domain of Roquin (also known as Rc3h1), increased Icos expression on T cells causes the accumulation of lymphocytes that is associated with a lupus-like autoimmune syndrome. Roquin normally limits Icos expression by promoting the degradation of Icos messenger RNA.A conserved segment in the unusually long ICOS 3' untranslated mRNA is essential for regulation by Roquin. This segment comprises a 47-base-pair minimal region complementary to T-cell-expressed microRNAs including miR-101, the repressive activity of which is disrupted by base-pair inversions predicted to abrogate miR-101 binding. These findings illuminate a critical post-transcriptional pathway within T cells that regulates lymphocyte accumulation and autoimmunity, and highlights the therapeutic potential of partially antagonising the ICOS pathway.

Roquin is an E3 ubiquitin ligase with a poorly understood but essential role in preventing T-cell-mediated autoimmune disease and in microRNAmediated repression of inducible costimulator (Icos) mRNA. Roquin and its mammalian paralogue membrane-associated nucleic acid binding protein (MNAB) define a protein family distinguished by an 200 amino acid domain of unknown function, ROQ, that is highly conserved from mammals to invertebrates and is flanked by a RING-1 zinc finger and a CCCH zinc finger. Here we show that human, Drosophila and Caenorhabditis elegans Roquin and human MNAB localize to the cytoplasm and upon stress are concentrated in stress granules, where stalled mRNA translation complexes are stored. The ROQ domain is necessary and sufficient for localization to arsenite-induced stress granules and to induce these structures upon overexpression, and is required to trigger Icos mRNA decay. Gel-shift, SPR and footprinting studies show that an N-terminal fragment centred on the ROQ domain binds RNA from the Icos 3¢-untranslated region comprising the minimal sequence for Roquin-mediated repression, adjacent to the miR-101 sequence complementarity. These findings identify Roquin as an RNA-binding protein and establish a specific function for the ROQ protein domain in mRNA homeostasis. Abbreviations Dcp1a, decapping enzyme 1; FMRP, Fragile X mental retardation protein; G3BP, Ras-GAP SH3 domain-binding protein; GFP, green fluorescent protein; Icos, inducible costimulator; miRNA, microRNA; MNAB, membrane-associated nucleic acid binding protein; REMSA, RNA electrophoresis mobility shift assay; TIA, T-cell intracellular antigen; TIS11, TPA-induced sequence 11; TTP, tristetraprolin.

Summary Universal red blood cells (RBCs) differentiated from O-negative human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) could find applications in transfusion medicine. Given that each transfusion unit of blood requires 2 trillion RBCs, efficient bioprocesses need to be developed for large-scale in vitro generation of RBCs. We have developed a scalable suspension agitation culture platform for differentiating hiPSC-microcarrier aggregates into functional RBCs and have demonstrated scalability of the process starting with 6 well plates and finally demonstrating in 500 mL spinner flasks. Differentiation of the best-performing hiPSCs generated 0.85 billion erythroblasts in 50 mL cultures with cell densities approaching 1.7 × 10 7 cells/mL. Functional (oxygen binding, hemoglobin characterization, membrane integrity, and fluctuations) and transcriptomics evaluations showed minimal differences between hiPSC-derived and adult-derived RBCs. The scalable agitation suspension culture differentiation process we describe here could find applications in future large-scale production of RBCs in controlled bioreactors.

Nature 451, 437-440 (2008) In Fig. 3a, the descriptions of the continuous and dotted curves were inadvertently swapped. The continuous line corresponds to the modified synthetic thermal profile (storms reaching the 60 mbar level). The dotted line corresponds to the Cassini CIRS thermal profile (storms reaching the 160 mbar level). The experiment measures the differential laser transmission through the quantum dot between the on-and off-exciton resonance condition. As a result, the origin in Fig. 2a-h corresponds to the zero of the measured differential transmission and does not exclude the existence of constant background absorption. It is therefore important to note that the undershoot in the Fano spectra does not correspond to a negative absorption (that is, an optical gain), but is consistent with the continuum broadband background absorption, as analysed in our observation of the nonlinear Fano effect. Similarly, the theoretical graphs in Fig. 2i-n are also given for the differential transmission. CORRIGENDUM

BackgroundRetention of a subset of introns in spliced polyadenylated mRNA is emerging as a frequent, unexplained finding from RNA deep sequencing in mammalian cells.ResultsHere we analyze intron retention in T lymphocytes by deep sequencing polyadenylated RNA. We show a developmentally regulated RNA-binding protein, hnRNPLL, induces retention of specific introns by sequencing RNA from T cells with an inactivating Hnrpll mutation and from B lymphocytes that physiologically downregulate Hnrpll during their differentiation. In Ptprc mRNA encoding the tyrosine phosphatase CD45, hnRNPLL induces selective retention of introns flanking exons 4 to 6; these correspond to the cassette exons containing hnRNPLL binding sites that are skipped in cells with normal, but not mutant or low, hnRNPLL. We identify similar patterns of hnRNPLL-induced differential intron retention flanking alternative exons in 14 other genes, representing novel elements of the hnRNPLL-induced splicing program in T cells. Retroviral expression of a normally spliced cDNA for one of these targets, Senp2, partially corrects the survival defect of Hnrpll-mutant T cells. We find that integrating a number of computational methods to detect genes with differentially retained introns provides a strategy to enrich for alternatively spliced exons in mammalian RNA-seq data, when complemented by RNA-seq analysis of purified cells with experimentally perturbed RNA-binding proteins.ConclusionsOur findings demonstrate that intron retention in mRNA is induced by specific RNA-binding proteins and suggest a biological significance for this process in marking exons that are poised for alternative splicing.

The inducible costimulator (ICOS), a member of the CD28 family of costimulatory molecules, is rapidly induced upon T cell activation. Although the critical role of ICOS in costimulating T cell responses is well documented, little is known of the intracellular signaling pathways and mechanisms that regulate ICOS expression. Here, we report that Fyn, NFAT, and ERK signaling influence ICOS expression as various chemical inhibitors, such as PP2 that targets Src kinases, U0126 that targets MEK1/2, and cyclosporin A or FK506 that targets calcineurin and thereby affects NFAT, attenuate T cell receptor-mediated ICOS induction. Moreover, ectopic expression of NFATc2 or a constitutively active MEK2 amplifies ICOS transcription and transactivates a 288-bp core region of the icos promoter in luciferase reporter assays. We also identify a site on the icos promoter that is sensitive to ERK signaling and further show that NFATc2 can bind the icos promoter in vivo and that this binding is diminished when Fyn signaling is ablated. The normal activation of ERK but reduced nuclear translocation of NFATc2 in Fyn ؊/؊ CD4 ؉ T cells further suggest that Fyn and NFATc2 act in a common axis, separate from that involving ERK, to drive ICOS transcription. Taken together, our findings indicate that Fyncalcineurin-NFATc2 and MEK2-ERK1/2 are two independent signaling pathways that cooperate to control T cell receptormediated ICOS induction.

Mammalian host cell lines are the preferred expression systems for the manufacture of complex therapeutics and recombinant proteins. However, the most utilized mammalian host systems, namely Chinese hamster ovary (CHO), Sp2/0 and NS0 mouse myeloma cells, can produce glycoproteins with non-human glycans that may potentially illicit immunogenic responses. Hence, we developed a fully human expression system based on HEK293 cells for the stable and high titer production of recombinant proteins by first knocking out GLUL (encoding glutamine synthetase) using CRISPR-Cas9 system. Expression vectors using human GLUL as selection marker were then generated, with recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO) as our model protein. Selection was performed using methionine sulfoximine (MSX) to select for high EPO expression cells. EPO production of up to 92700 U/mL of EPO as analyzed by ELISA or 696 mg/L by densitometry was demonstrated in a 2 L stirred-tank fed batch bioreactor. Mass spectrometry analysis revealed that N-glycosylation of the produced EPO was similar to endogenous human proteins and non-human glycan epitopes were not detected. Collectively, our results highlight the use of a human cellular expression system for the high titer and xenogeneic-free production of EPO and possibly other complex recombinant proteins.