Recent thymic emigrants (RTEs) are newly generated T cells that need to undergo post-thymic maturation to gain functional competency and enter the long-lived naïve T cell pool. The mechanism of T cell maturation remains incompletely understood. Previously, we demonstrated that the transcriptional repressor NKAP is required for T cell maturation. As NKAP associates with histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3), we examined whether HDAC3 is also required for T cell maturation. While thymic populations are similar in CD4-cre HDAC3 conditional knockout (cKO) mice compared to wild-type (WT) mice, however, the peripheral numbers of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are dramatically decreased. In the periphery, the majority of HDAC3-deficient naïve T cells are RTEs, indicating a block in T cell maturation. CD55 upregulation during T cell maturation is substantially decreased in HDAC3-deficient T cells. Consistent with a block in functional maturation, HDAC3-deficient peripheral T cells have a defect in TNF licensing after TCR/CD28 stimulation. CD4-cre HDAC3 cKO mice do not have a defect in intrathymic migration, thymic egress, T cell survival or homeostasis. In the periphery, similar to immature NKAP-deficient peripheral T cells, HDAC3-deficient peripheral T cells were bound by IgM and complement proteins, leading to the elimination of these cells. In addition, HDAC3-deficient T cells display decreases in the sialic acid modifications on the cell surface that recruit natural IgM to initiate the classical complement pathway. Therefore, HDAC3 is required for T cell maturation.
Recent thymic emigrants (RTEs) must undergo phenotypic and functional maturation to become long-lived mature naïve T cells. In CD4-cre NKAP conditional knockout mice, NKAP-deficient RTEs fail to complete T cell maturation. Here, we demonstrate that NKAP-deficient immature RTEs do not undergo apoptosis, but are eliminated by complement. C3, C4 and C1q are bound to NKAP-deficient peripheral T cells, demonstrating activation of the classical arm of the complement pathway. As thymocytes mature and exit to the periphery, they increase sialic acid incorporation into cell surface glycans. This is essential to peripheral lymphocyte survival, as stripping sialic acid with neuraminidase leads to the binding of natural IgM and complement fixation. NKAP-deficient T cells have a defect in sialylation on cell surface glycans, leading to IgM recruitment. We demonstrate that the defect in sialylation is due to aberrant α2,8-linked sialylation, and the expression of three genes (ST8sia1, ST8sia4 and ST8sia6) that mediate α2,8 sialylation are down regulated in NKAP-defcient RTEs. The maturation of peripheral NKAP-deficient T cells is partially rescued in a C3-deficient environment. Thus, sialylation during T cell maturation is critical to protect immature RTEs from complement in the periphery.
Invariant natural killer T cells have a distinct developmental pathway from conventional αβ T cells. Here we demonstrate that the transcriptional repressor NKAP is required for invariant natural killer T cell but not conventional T cell development. In CD4-cre NKAP conditional knockout mice, invariant natural killer T cell development is blocked at the double-positive stage. This cell-intrinsic block is not due to decreased survival or failure to rearrange the invariant Vα14-Jα18 T cell receptor-α chain, but is rescued by overexpression of a rec-Vα14-Jα18 transgene at the double-positive stage, thus defining a role for NKAP in selection into the invariant natural killer T cell lineage. Importantly, deletion of the NKAP-associated protein histone deacetylase 3 causes a similar block in the invariant natural killer T cell development, indicating that NKAP and histone deacetylase 3 functionally interact to control invariant natural killer T cell development.
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