Core Fucosylation of the T Cell Receptor Is Required for T Cell Activation

• Main Authors: Wei Liang, Shanshan Mao, Shijie Sun, Ming Li, Zhi Li, Rui Yu, Tonghui Ma, Jianguo Gu, Jianing Zhang, Naoyuki Taniguchi, Wenzhe Li
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-01-01
• Series: Frontiers in Immunology
• Subjects: core fucosylation; T cell receptor; T cell activation; systemic lupus erythematosus; T–B cell interaction
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fimmu.2018.00078/full

CD4+ T cell activation promotes the pathogenic process of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). T cell receptor (TCR) complex are highly core fucosylated glycoproteins, which play important roles in T cell activation. In this study, we found that the core fucosylation of CD4+ T cells was significantly increased in SLE patients. Loss of core fucosyltransferase (Fut8), the sole enzyme for catalyzing the core fucosylation of N-glycan, significantly reduced CD4+ T cell activation and ameliorated the experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis-induced syndrome in Fut8−/− mice. T cell activation with OVA323–339 loaded major histocompatibility complex II (pMHC-II) on B cell was dramatically attenuated in Fut8−/−OT-II CD4+ T cells compared with Fut8+/+OT-II CD4+ T cells. Moreover, the phosphorylation of ZAP-70 was significantly reduced in Fut8+/+OT-II CD4+ T cells by the treatment of fucosidase. Our results suggest that core fucosylation is required for efficient TCR–pMHC-II contacts in CD4+ T cell activation, and hyper core fucosylation may serve as a potential novel biomarker in the sera from SLE patients.