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1: Immunity. 1999 Aug;11(2):213-23.Click here to read Links

Induction of germline transcription in the TCRgamma locus by Stat5: implications for accessibility control by the IL-7 receptor.

Ye SK, Maki K, Kitamura T, Sunaga S, Akashi K, Domen J, Weissman IL, Honjo T, Ikuta K.

Department of Medical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University, Japan.

IL-7 receptor (IL-7R) plays critical roles in lymphocyte development by promoting survival and proliferation and by inducing V(D)J recombination in TCR and Ig loci. Here, we demonstrate that IL-7R-activated Stat5 binds to consensus motifs in the 5' regions of Jgamma segments and induces germline transcripts. We also show that a constitutively active form of Stat5 restores V-J recombination of TCRgamma genes and partially rescues T cell development from IL-7R(-/-) T cell precursors, especially in favor of gammadelta T cells. Therefore, this study reveals a potential role of Stat5 in T cell development and also implies that IL-7R may control the accessibility of the TCRgamma locus through Stat5-induced germline transcription.

PMID: 10485656 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]