GSE134689
Antigen-driven EGR2 expression is required for exhausted CD8+ T cell stability and maintenance [RNA-seq I]
In this study, we examined the role of the transcriptional regulator EGR2 in CD8+ T cell exhaustion during chronic viral infection.  Flow cytometric analysis indicated that EGR2 deficient CD8+ T cells had a block in differentiation and failed to undergo terminal exhaustion. To confirm this at a whole transcriptome level, we conducted RNAseq analysis on sorted splenic virus-specific tetramer+ CD8+ T cells isolated at day 20 post-infection with chronic LCMV-Cl13 from either littermate control or EGR2 T cell conditional knock-out mice. The resulting data demonstrated that there was a global loss of the terminally exhausted gene signature within EGR2 KO CD8+ T cells.  This suggests that EGR2 promotes terminal CD8+ T cell exhaustion. Overall design: The transcriptome of exhausted wild-type or EGR2 knockout CD8+ T cells was examined by RNAseq.