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The regulation of murine Natural Killer T cell cytokine production by Mer tyrosine kinase
Author(s) -
Flores Rafael,
Wang Bo,
Tisch Roland
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.22.2_supplement.555
Subject(s) - mertk , natural killer t cell , microbiology and biotechnology , efferocytosis , cytokine , zap70 , biology , tyrosine kinase , cancer research , receptor tyrosine kinase , immunology , t cell , chemistry , kinase , signal transduction , immune system , macrophage , biochemistry , in vitro
NKT cells have multiple effector functions including the capacity to prevent the growth of tumors and invading pathogens, and the ability to immunoregulate autoimmunity. The key events that regulate NKT cell activation and function remain ill‐defined. Recently, NKT cells were shown to express the receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) Mer (MerTK). MerTK belongs to a family of RTK consisting of Tyro3 and Axl. These RTK mediate the clearance of apoptotic cells (AC) and regulate the activation of dendritic cells (DC) and macrophages. Recently, we demonstrated that DC lacking MerTK are resistant to the inhibitory effects of AC. In this study, we sought to determine the role for MerTK in regulating NKT cell activation and function. To address this issue, we used C57BL/6 mice (B6) lacking MerTK expression (B6.mertk kd/kd ). Our data demonstrates that NKT cells were similarly activated in wild type and B6.mertk kd/kd mice following long term exposure to alpha‐GalCer (αGC). However, after stimulation with αGC pulsed DC, IFNγ and IL‐4 production was significantly increased in NKT cells prepared from B6.mertk kd/kd versus B6 mice. These results indicate that MerTK serves to down‐regulate cytokine production by NKT cells. This study was supported by NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA 1F32DK080593‐01.