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The Role of ZEB2 in Human CD8 T Lymphocytes: Clinical and Cellular Immune Profiling in Mowat–Wilson Syndrome

The Zeb2 gene encodes a transcription factor (ZEB2) that acts as an important immune mediator in mice, where it is expressed in early-activated effector CD8 T cells, and limits effector differentiation. Zeb2 homozygous knockout mice have deficits in CD8 T cells and NK cells. Mowat–Wilson syndrome (M...

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Autores principales: Frith, Katie, Munier, C. Mee Ling, Hastings, Lucy, Mowat, David, Wilson, Meredith, Seddiki, Nabila, Macintosh, Rebecca, Kelleher, Anthony D., Gray, Paul, Zaunders, John James
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8158478/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34070208
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms22105324
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author Frith, Katie
Munier, C. Mee Ling
Hastings, Lucy
Mowat, David
Wilson, Meredith
Seddiki, Nabila
Macintosh, Rebecca
Kelleher, Anthony D.
Gray, Paul
Zaunders, John James
author_facet Frith, Katie
Munier, C. Mee Ling
Hastings, Lucy
Mowat, David
Wilson, Meredith
Seddiki, Nabila
Macintosh, Rebecca
Kelleher, Anthony D.
Gray, Paul
Zaunders, John James
author_sort Frith, Katie
collection PubMed
description The Zeb2 gene encodes a transcription factor (ZEB2) that acts as an important immune mediator in mice, where it is expressed in early-activated effector CD8 T cells, and limits effector differentiation. Zeb2 homozygous knockout mice have deficits in CD8 T cells and NK cells. Mowat–Wilson syndrome (MWS) is a rare genetic disease resulting from heterozygous mutations in ZEB2 causing disease by haploinsufficiency. Whether ZEB2 exhibits similar expression patterns in human CD8 T cells is unknown, and MWS patients have not been comprehensively studied to identify changes in CD8 lymphocytes and NK cells, or manifestations of immunodeficiency. By using transcriptomic assessment, we demonstrated that ZEB2 is expressed in early-activated effector CD8 T cells of healthy human volunteers following vaccinia inoculation and found evidence of a role for TGFß-1/SMAD signaling in these cells. A broad immunological assessment of six genetically diagnosed MWS patients identified two patients with a history of recurrent sinopulmonary infections, one of whom had recurrent oral candidiasis, one with lymphopenia, two with thrombocytopenia and three with detectable anti-nuclear antibodies. Immunoglobulin levels, including functional antibody responses to protein and polysaccharide vaccination, were normal. The MWS patients had a significantly lower CD8 T cell subset as % of lymphocytes, compared to healthy controls (median 16.4% vs. 25%, p = 0.0048), and resulting increased CD4:CD8 ratio (2.6 vs. 1.8; p = 0.038). CD8 T cells responded normally to mitogen stimulation in vitro and memory CD8 T cells exhibited normal proportions of subsets with important tissue-specific homing markers and cytotoxic effector molecules. There was a trend towards a decrease in the CD8 T effector memory subset (3.3% vs. 5.9%; p = 0.19). NK cell subsets were normal. This is the first evidence that ZEB2 is expressed in early-activated human effector CD8 T cells, and that haploinsufficiency of ZEB2 in MWS patients had a slight effect on immune function, skewing T cells away from CD8 differentiation. To date there is insufficient evidence to support an immunodeficiency occurring in MWS patients.
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spelling pubmed-81584782021-05-28 The Role of ZEB2 in Human CD8 T Lymphocytes: Clinical and Cellular Immune Profiling in Mowat–Wilson Syndrome Frith, Katie Munier, C. Mee Ling Hastings, Lucy Mowat, David Wilson, Meredith Seddiki, Nabila Macintosh, Rebecca Kelleher, Anthony D. Gray, Paul Zaunders, John James Int J Mol Sci Article The Zeb2 gene encodes a transcription factor (ZEB2) that acts as an important immune mediator in mice, where it is expressed in early-activated effector CD8 T cells, and limits effector differentiation. Zeb2 homozygous knockout mice have deficits in CD8 T cells and NK cells. Mowat–Wilson syndrome (MWS) is a rare genetic disease resulting from heterozygous mutations in ZEB2 causing disease by haploinsufficiency. Whether ZEB2 exhibits similar expression patterns in human CD8 T cells is unknown, and MWS patients have not been comprehensively studied to identify changes in CD8 lymphocytes and NK cells, or manifestations of immunodeficiency. By using transcriptomic assessment, we demonstrated that ZEB2 is expressed in early-activated effector CD8 T cells of healthy human volunteers following vaccinia inoculation and found evidence of a role for TGFß-1/SMAD signaling in these cells. A broad immunological assessment of six genetically diagnosed MWS patients identified two patients with a history of recurrent sinopulmonary infections, one of whom had recurrent oral candidiasis, one with lymphopenia, two with thrombocytopenia and three with detectable anti-nuclear antibodies. Immunoglobulin levels, including functional antibody responses to protein and polysaccharide vaccination, were normal. The MWS patients had a significantly lower CD8 T cell subset as % of lymphocytes, compared to healthy controls (median 16.4% vs. 25%, p = 0.0048), and resulting increased CD4:CD8 ratio (2.6 vs. 1.8; p = 0.038). CD8 T cells responded normally to mitogen stimulation in vitro and memory CD8 T cells exhibited normal proportions of subsets with important tissue-specific homing markers and cytotoxic effector molecules. There was a trend towards a decrease in the CD8 T effector memory subset (3.3% vs. 5.9%; p = 0.19). NK cell subsets were normal. This is the first evidence that ZEB2 is expressed in early-activated human effector CD8 T cells, and that haploinsufficiency of ZEB2 in MWS patients had a slight effect on immune function, skewing T cells away from CD8 differentiation. To date there is insufficient evidence to support an immunodeficiency occurring in MWS patients. MDPI 2021-05-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8158478/ /pubmed/34070208 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms22105324 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Frith, Katie
Munier, C. Mee Ling
Hastings, Lucy
Mowat, David
Wilson, Meredith
Seddiki, Nabila
Macintosh, Rebecca
Kelleher, Anthony D.
Gray, Paul
Zaunders, John James
The Role of ZEB2 in Human CD8 T Lymphocytes: Clinical and Cellular Immune Profiling in Mowat–Wilson Syndrome
title The Role of ZEB2 in Human CD8 T Lymphocytes: Clinical and Cellular Immune Profiling in Mowat–Wilson Syndrome
title_full The Role of ZEB2 in Human CD8 T Lymphocytes: Clinical and Cellular Immune Profiling in Mowat–Wilson Syndrome
title_fullStr The Role of ZEB2 in Human CD8 T Lymphocytes: Clinical and Cellular Immune Profiling in Mowat–Wilson Syndrome
title_full_unstemmed The Role of ZEB2 in Human CD8 T Lymphocytes: Clinical and Cellular Immune Profiling in Mowat–Wilson Syndrome
title_short The Role of ZEB2 in Human CD8 T Lymphocytes: Clinical and Cellular Immune Profiling in Mowat–Wilson Syndrome
title_sort role of zeb2 in human cd8 t lymphocytes: clinical and cellular immune profiling in mowat–wilson syndrome
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8158478/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34070208
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms22105324
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