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3f, g)

3f, g). we show that deletion of m6A writer protein METTL3 in mouse T cells disrupts T cell homeostasis and differentiation. In a lymphopenic mouse adoptive transfer model, naive deficient T cells failed to undergo homeostatic expansion and remarkably remained in the na?ve state up through 12 weeks, thereby preventing colitis. Consistent with these observations, the mRNAs of SOCS family genes encoding STAT- signaling inhibitory proteins, and deficient na?ve T cells. This increased SOCS family activity consequently inhibited IL-7 mediated STAT5 activation and T cell homeostatic proliferation and DC661 differentiation. We also found that m6A plays important roles for inducible degradation of mRNAs in response to IL-7 signaling in order to reprogram Na?ve T cells for proliferation and differentiation. Our study elucidates for the first time the biological role of m6A modification in T cell mediated pathogenesis and DC661 reveals a novel mechanism of T cell homeostasis and signal-dependent induction of mRNA degradation. T cell differentiation and proliferation represent an exceptionally simple and tractable model system to understand the general principles of cellular specification and gene regulation. Alpha beta na?ve T cells can differentiate and proliferate into distinct functional T helper effector subset cells in response to defined cytokines and different micro-environmental signals functions of m6A, we generated conditional knockout mice for the m6A writer protein, METTL3 (Extended Data Fig. 1a), as knockout (KO) mice are embryonic lethal 3. CD4+ T cells from CD4-CRE conditional KO na?ve T cells, we utilized the defined TCR-dependent T cell differentiation system and found that deficient na?ve T cells exhibited reduction of Th1 and Th17 cells, an increase in Th2 cells, and no changes in Treg cells relative to WT na?ve T cells (Extended Data Fig. 2a, b). We also saw no significant differences in proliferation and apoptosis between the WT and KO na?ve T cells in these cultures (Extended Data Fig. 2c, d). Together, these findings suggest that m6A modification plays an important role during CD4+ T cell differentiation, but not on T cell apoptosis and TCR-mediated proliferation. Upon adoptive transfer into lymphopenic mice, na?ve T cells normally undergo homeostatic expansion in response to the elevated IL-7 levels in such mice and differentiate into effector T cells, causing colitis 7. To study how regulates na?ve T cell homeostasis recipients) showed no signs of disease up to 12 weeks after transfer. recipient) began losing weight at the 5th week DC661 after transfer (Fig. 1a). recipients exhibited no colitis upon endoscopy, displayed normal colon length, and were found to have reduced spleen and lymph node sizes compared to WT control mice at the 8th week after transfer (Fig. 1b, Extended Data 3a, b). When analyzed by FACS, KO T cells caused no T cell infiltration and inflammation, while WT T cells caused severe colonic inflammation and disrupted colon structure (Fig. 1c). Remarkably, CD209 FACS analysis further revealed that the vast majority of transferred KO na?ve T cells do not DC661 promote disease in CD45RB-High adoptive transfer colitis mouse modela, Body weight changes after na?ve T cell adoptive transfer into host mice (n=10), 2-way ANOVA. b, c, Endoscopic colitis scores and representative pictures of H&E staining of the colon from receiving WT and KO naive T cells 8 weeks after transfer (n=10), unpaired t test. d, FACS analysis of transferred T cells in colon tissues (n=3), unpaired t test. n=number of biological replicates. p*** 0.001, p**** 0.0001. Open in a separate window Figure 2 KO na?ve T cells are locked in the na?ve state and proliferate much slower than WT cells after transfer into micea, Most of the KO donor cells are retained in lymph nodes (LN) and are locked in na?ve states 12 weeks after transfer. b, The WT donor na?ve T cells start to differentiate from the second week after transfer (CD45RBlow), while the KO donor na?ve T cells always stay in na?ve states (CD45RBhigh). c, d, The WT donor na?ve T cells are driven to proliferate rapidly from the 2nd week, while the KO T cells slowly proliferate, with the total number of cells recovered from pLN shown in (d). e, KO donor na?ve T cells recapitulate the phenotype of KO donor cells. At least 6 animals in each group were analyzed, and representative images were shown. We next sought to investigate whether KO T cells retained a na?ve phonotype and proliferated slowly. Four weeks after transfer, over 90% of WT cells had differentiated into effector/memory cells, while most of the KO T cells remained na?ve and failed to display increased proliferation (Fig. 2b, c). Despite starting with a similar number of cells, WT cells proliferated over 50 times more than KO cells by the second week, and over 400 times more by week four (Fig. 2d). No differences in apoptosis were observed between KO and DC661 WT T cells (Extended Data Fig. 3e), suggesting.