Journal
FRONTIERS IN IMMUNOLOGY
Volume 8, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2017.00671
Keywords
epithelial cell line; interferon-lambda; heterogeneous gene expression; cell polarization; small intestinal organoids
Categories
Funding
- BMBF [0316170T]
- Collaborative Research Center [SFB900]
- Infection Biology international PhD program of Hannover Biomedical Research School
- Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research Graduate School
- German Research Foundation (DFG)
- European Research Training Group [1273]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Type I and type III interferons (IFNs) are crucial components of the first-line antiviral host response. While specific receptors for both IFN types exist, intracellular signaling shares the same Jak-STAT pathway. Due to its receptor expression, IFN-lambda responsiveness is restricted mainly to epithelial cells. Here, we display IFN-stimulated gene induction at the single cell level to comparatively analyze the activities of both IFN types in intestinal epithelial cells and mini-gut organoids. Initially, we noticed that the response to both types of IFNs at low concentrations is based on a single cell decision-making determining the total cell intrinsic antiviral activity. We identified histone deacetylase (HDAC) activity as a crucial restriction factor controlling the cell frequency of IFN-stimulated gene (ISG) induction upon IFN-lambda but not IFN-beta stimulation. Consistently, HDAC blockade confers antiviral activity to an elsewise non-responding subpopulation. Second, in contrast to the type I IFN system, polarization of intestinal epithelial cells strongly enhances their ability to respond to IFN-lambda signaling and raises the kinetics of gene induction. Finally, we show that ISG induction in mini-gut organoids by low amounts of IFN is characterized by a scattered heterogeneous responsiveness of the epithelial cells and HDAC activity fine-tunes exclusively IFN-lambda activity. This study provides a comprehensive description of the differential response to type I and type III IFNs and demonstrates that cell polarization in gut epithelial cells specifically increases IFN-lambda activity.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available