Alteration of gene expression profile in CD3 + T-cells after downregulating MALT1.

Background: T cell immunodeficiency is a common feature in patients with different kinds of hematological disease such as T cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (T-NHL), B cells NHL (B-NHL), NK/T cell NHL (NK/T-CL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). In our recent research, we found that significantly lower expression levels in MALT1 and NF-κB were related to suppression of T cell activation. Therefore, this study was conducted to further investigate the role of downregulating MALT1 in the development of immunodeficiency in T cells.

Methods: We induced activation inhibition in CD3+ T cells by MALT1 knockdown. Then we characterized the gene expression profile after MALT1 suppression by microarray analysis.

Result: The differentially expressed genes were ZAP-70, p65, MDM2, ATM, NFATC2 which participate in the NF-κB, p53, and NFAT pathways in CD3+ T cells after MALT1 downregulation.

Conclusion: MALT1 suppression may contribute to immunodeficiency in T cells via suppression of T cell activation and proliferation pathways. These data may help to explain some of the characteristics of immunodeficiency of T cells.