The Journal of Experimental Medicine
Torrey Pines Biolabs
  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents
Published 6 October 2003. doi:10.1084/jem.20030630
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow PPT slides of all figures
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new content in the JEM
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Stetson, D. B.
Right arrow Articles by Locksley, R. M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Stetson, D. B.
Right arrow Articles by Locksley, R. M.
Right arrowPubmed/NCBI databases
*Gene*GEO Profiles
*HomoloGene*UniGene
*Substance via MeSH
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?
© Rockefeller University Press, 0022-1007/2003/10/1069 $5.00
The Journal of Experimental Medicine, Volume 198, Number 7, 1069-1076

Constitutive Cytokine mRNAs Mark Natural Killer (NK) and NK T Cells Poised for Rapid Effector Function

Daniel B. Stetson1, Markus Mohrs1, R. Lee Reinhardt1, Jody L. Baron1, Zhi-En Wang1, Laurent Gapin2, Mitchell Kronenberg2 and Richard M. Locksley1

1 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Departments of Medicine and Microbiology/Immunology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143
2 The La Jolla Institute of Allergy and Immunology, San Diego, CA 92121

Address correspondence to Richard M. Locksley, University of California San Francisco, Box 0654, C-443, 521 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94143. Phone: (415) 476-5859; Fax: (415) 476-9364; email: locksley{at}medicine.ucsf.edu

Natural killer (NK) and NK T cells are tissue lymphocytes that secrete cytokines rapidly upon stimulation. Here, we show that these cells maintain distinct patterns of constitutive cytokine mRNAs. Unlike conventional T cells, NK T cells activate interleukin (IL)-4 and interferon (IFN)-{gamma} transcription during thymic development and populate the periphery with both cytokine loci previously modified by histone acetylation. Similarly, NK cells transcribe and modify the IFN-{gamma} gene, but not IL-4, during developmental maturation in the bone marrow. Lineage-specific patterns of cytokine transcripts predate infection and suggest evolutionary selection for invariant but distinct types of effector responses among the earliest responding lymphocytes.

Key Words: NK T cells • NK cells • cytokine mRNAs • IL-4 • IFN-{gamma}


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:



  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search
TABLE OF CONTENTS