PUBLICATION
Retinoblastoma 1 protects T cell maturation from premature apoptosis by inhibiting E2F1
- Authors
- Zhang, Z., Liu, W., Zhao, L., Huang, Z., Chen, X., Ma, N., Xu, J., Zhang, W., Zhang, Y.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-171213-5
- Date
- 2017
- Source
- Development (Cambridge, England) 145(1): (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Chen, Xiaohui, Huang, Zhibin, Liu, Wei, Ma, Ning, Zhang, Wenqing, Zhang, Yiyue, Zhang, Zili, Zhao, Lingfeng
- Keywords
- Apoptosis, E2F1, Rb1, T lymphocyte, Zebrafish
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Apoptosis/physiology*
- E2F1 Transcription Factor/genetics
- E2F1 Transcription Factor/metabolism*
- Retinoblastoma Protein/genetics
- Retinoblastoma Protein/metabolism*
- T-Lymphocytes/cytology
- T-Lymphocytes/metabolism*
- Zebrafish/genetics
- Zebrafish/metabolism*
- Zebrafish Proteins/genetics
- Zebrafish Proteins/metabolism
- Zinc Finger E-box-Binding Homeobox 1/genetics
- Zinc Finger E-box-Binding Homeobox 1/metabolism
- PubMed
- 29229770 Full text @ Development
Citation
Zhang, Z., Liu, W., Zhao, L., Huang, Z., Chen, X., Ma, N., Xu, J., Zhang, W., Zhang, Y. (2017) Retinoblastoma 1 protects T cell maturation from premature apoptosis by inhibiting E2F1. Development (Cambridge, England). 145(1).
Abstract
T lymphocytes are key cellular components of an acquired immune system and play essential roles in cell-mediated immunity. T cell development occurs in the thymus where 95% of immature thymocytes are eliminated via apoptosis. It is known that mutation of Zeb1, one of the retinoblastoma 1 (Rb1) target genes, results in a decrease in the number of immature T cells in mice. E2F1, an RB1-interacting protein, has been shown to regulate mature T cell development by interfering with thymocyte apoptosis. However, whether Rb1 regulates thymocyte development in vivo still needs to be further investigated. Here, we use a zebrafish model to investigate the role of Rb1 in T cell development. We show that Rb1-deficient fish exhibit a significant reduction in T cell number during early development that it is attributed to the accelerated apoptosis of immature T cells in a caspase-dependent manner. We further show that E2F1 overexpression could mimic the reduced T lymphocytes phenotype of Rb1 mutants, and E2F1 knockdown could rescue the phenotype in Rb1-deficient mutants. Collectively, our data indicate that the Rb1-E2F1-caspase axis is crucial for protecting immature T cells from apoptosis during early T lymphocyte maturation.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping